


Parting the Veil

by IonaWestray



Series: Gargoyles: Ramble On [5]
Category: Gargoyles (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:26:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27136591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IonaWestray/pseuds/IonaWestray
Summary: Elisa and her parents are headed on a quick family trip to Flagstaff for Beth's graduation, and she has tasked Goliath with looking after her cat while she's away. What could possibly go wrong?A lot.
Relationships: Goliath/Elisa Maza
Series: Gargoyles: Ramble On [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901287
Comments: 36
Kudos: 36





	1. Prologue

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Coyote whispered to the raven-haired woman who stood next to him. He looked around nervously. He’d checked the area first when he learned of Tümas’s plans and confronted her, but there were eyes and ears everywhere on Avalon, and one couldn’t be too careful.

“It’s calling to me, Coyote. I feel it every day, crying out for me,” the woman said quietly, and she shuddered. She was slender and tall with coppery skin, high cheekbones, and a graceful aquiline nose. She wore beaded deerskin moccasins and a midnight blue cotton manta dress that was belted around the waist with a red sash. Only her pointed ears gave away her true nature. “I cannot ignore it any longer, and I fear if I do not go now, it will be lost to me forever.”

Coyote glanced back towards the palace.

“If Ober—” he started, but the woman stopped him from completing what he was going to say by clapping a hand over his mouth.

“Do not invoke his name unless you _want_ him to hear us,” she hissed.

“If _he_ finds out you have left without his permission, he may do to you what he did to Puck.”

“I will be back before he even notices I am gone,” the woman continued.

“I hope you’re right, Mother,” Coyote grumbled. “Say hi to the Mazas for me when you see them.”

Tümas nodded and disappeared in the blink of an eye, a few black crow feathers drifted down to the ground where she once stood.

Once she was gone, Coyote turned from the wooded thicket and began to walk back towards the palace. As he did, a pair of eyes watched him from the trees before a large raven spread its wings and took off soundlessly into the night.

* * *

It didn’t take long for Oberon’s lakeys to find him, and they appeared in front of him without warning as he made his way back to the heart of Avalon and the palace.

“You have been summoned,” Phoebe said.

“By our Lord and Master,” Selene added.

“To his court,” Luna finished.

Coyote looked at the Weird Sisters as they hovered several feet off the ground in front of him, and sighed. Someone had snitched.

“You do realize the word master has severely negative connotations these days, don’t you?” Coyote snarked.

They only stared humorlessly back at him.

“Come in haste or suffer the consequences,” they said in unison.

Coyote cursed under his breath, then he put on a fake, overly cheerful grin.

“After you,” he said with a mockingly dignified air. The trio along with Coyote disappeared only to reappear in the courtroom of the palace in front of a large dais and Oberon’s throne whereupon the Lord of Avalon and all of Faerie himself sat.

Out of the corner of his eye, Coyote watched Raven slink off, and his expression twisted sourly as he sniffed out the rat.

“Coyote,” Oberon’s voice boomed loudly in the large room.

“My Lord,” Coyote said reluctantly as he bowed at the waist.

Oberon’s face remained as stony as a slab of granite.

“It has come to my attention that Tümas has left Avalon without my permission.”

“Hmm?” Coyote monotoned, feigning ignorance.

“Where has she gone?”

“I don’t know what—”

“Your mother,” Oberon said, his tone clearly annoyed. “Tell me where she has gone and why.”

Oberon’s voice reverberated through the room as if it were coming from several loudspeakers.

“If you had me for a son, wouldn’t you want to disappear on occasion?” Coyote said flippantly.

“I’ll ask you only once more. Where. Is. Tümas?” Oberon ordered and his voice reverberated with power through Coyote, compelling him to speak.

“She went to the mortal realm. To reclaim a part of her power.”

“Where?” Oberon ordered, using the same voice, infusing it with his power.

Coyote strained against the compulsion, but it was futile. Oberon’s power was far greater than his own.

“The Hopi lands in Arizona. Near Flagstaff,” he choked out.

“And who possesses her power?”

Coyote held off as long as he could. He shook against the strain, and cried against it.

“Carmen…Carmen Maza!” he gasped.

“Maza…why is that name familiar?”

“You have encountered her descendent, Elisa Maza, before.”

“Ah…yes. The meddling human woman,” Oberon said, his mouth twisting with distaste.

He was thoughtful for a moment as he sized Coyote up.

“Tümas left without my permission, and you knew of it, though I can understand your maternal loyalty, your loyalty to your Lord comes first. You will be punished for this, but first your task is to retrieve your mother and bring her back promptly to face her own punishment. Failure to do so, and you both will pay a far greater penance than the Banshee or Puck, I can assure you.”

Coyote swallowed nearly audibly.

“Yes, my Lord,” he said.

“Do not return until your task is complete, and for your sake, you should do so in a timely manner.”

Coyote bowed at the waist once more before he disappeared in the form of a small dust devil, and the yip and howl of a coyote echoed in the room before the small dust storm disappeared.

Oberon looked to the three sisters, his most loyal subjects.

“Go to the mortal realm and bring back Tümas. I do not trust Coyote to not take advantage of the situation. Report back to me if he goes off task,” he ordered.

“As you wish, my Lord,” they said in unison, and then they too disappeared in a flash of light

Oberon sighed with deep annoyance and waited. If they were gone longer than a couple of hours, he would be quite put out.


	2. Separation

**May 3, 1997** **  
****Castle Wyvern**

Goliath watched his clan from a battlement above the courtyard where they had informally gathered after the first meal of the night. It was a pleasant spring evening, and they were enjoying the mild weather. Most were just talking amiably with each other while Nashville tossed a ball back and forth with Lexington as Bronx and Fu-Dog ran back and forth, barking and trying to intercept the ball.

The antics and whoops and shouts of amusement warmed Goliath. It was nice to hear youthful joy once more. He thought of all of the clan’s hatchlings Nashville's age who were lost in the massacre, and he felt a painful twist in his heart. He thought of their youthful faces, gone forever, to never grow and experience all the joys and sorrows of life. He shuddered and shook off the images before he grew too morose and sunk into a depressive stupor.

"It's nice to see, isn’t it?" Hudson said as he walked up next to him.

Goliath smiled softly.

"It is," he replied to his old mentor.

"The London clan has a whole mess o' hatchlings Nashville's age. It did my old heart good to see them, and it also gave me somethin' I thought I had lost.”

"And what's that?" Goliath asked.

"Hope," Hudson replied. 

"I'm pleased you got to see them, my friend," Goliath replied warmly. 

"Me, too, lad," Hudson said softly.

At that moment, Elisa walked unexpectedly into the castle courtyard. She intercepted the ball just as Nashville tossed it to Lex and then did some odd but amusing little dance that clearly conveyed her victorious glee while Bronx and Fu-Dog cavorted around her. Goliath laughed softly at her antics, and then she looked up at him, their eyes met, and her smile radiated up at him like the sun as she waved to him. He held up his hand in reply, and couldn't help the goofy love-sick smile that spread across his face.

"The two o' you make quite the pair," Hudson said.

"I hope you mean that in a good way, old friend," Goliath replied. 

"Aye, I do. It's good to see ye both so happy, but I can't help but wonder...is Elisa content with yer arrangement?"

"What do you mean?" Goliath asked, concerned that Hudson may have observed something about his love that he hadn't.

"She's human for one thing, an' well...I can't help but wonder if she expects ye to make an…honest woman out o' her," Hudson said, stumbling a little awkwardly over the human phrase for when a woman hopes the man she is being intimate with marries her.

"I have not dishonored her, Hudson, and most importantly, she does not feel that way," Goliath replied seriously as he tried to withhold the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth over Hudson’s parental concern for Elisa.

"I know that, lad, but…her ways are not our ways, an' she may be expectin' more from ye."

Goliath smiled and lowered his voice as he spoke conspiratorially to his old mentor.

“We have...something we’re planning that I think will help unite our ways with Elisa’s.”

“Is that so?” Hudson said, raising his brows.

“We’re still planning and have not revealed our intentions yet to Elisa’s family, but when we do, we will inform everyone.”

“I see,” Hudson replied and he stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I’ll speak nothing more about it then.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Goliath said, and he clapped him on the shoulder before he leapt over the wall and landed in the courtyard below. He strode over to Elisa, put a hand under her chin, and tipped her face up to his as he leaned down and kissed her.

In front of everyone.

There were a few whoops and whistles, mostly from Brooklyn, but a few of the others joined in.

Timedancing had matured Brooklyn in many ways, but it had not destroyed his spirit or his unique sense of humor, for which Goliath was grateful, but he waved him off dismissively anyway as he continued to kiss Elisa.

He knew he would get teased relentlessly about it later, not because anyone disapproved of his relationship with Elisa, in fact, it was quite the opposite. Because they loved Elisa and genuinely approved of them together, they felt comfortable enough to tease them about it.

Goliath kissed her openly to make a point. After observing Angela and Broadway and Brooklyn and Katana, he realized that he had forgotten how openly affectionate gargoyle couples were. They were constantly touching each other, not in an obscene way, but there was always a stroke of the brow here, a caress of the hair there, and he realized he had been needlessly reserved with Elisa around the others, and he needed to end that. He was not ashamed of his relationship with her, though his actions may have subconsciously transmitted that.

She was his mate. His life partner. And he needed to treat her as such.

Once he had made his point, and Elisa was thoroughly blushing, he took her by the hand and led her away from the rest of the clan.

“To what occasion do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” he asked as they walked together around the fountain in the courtyard.

“I wanted to check in on all of you. I rarely get to see you all together these days, and it’s been a while since I came by. The nights are also getting shorter, too, and we don’t get to spend as much time together alone,” Elisa responded.

“I am glad to see you, but then I always am,” Goliath said warmly, and he pressed his lips to the back of her hand. “How do you wish to spend your evening, it being your night off?”

“Hmm, well, I’d like to spend a little time with the clan, but later, maybe we could go for a glide?” Elisa suggested.

“Or I could read to you in the library,” Goliath suggested.

Elisa gave him a scolding look.

“Hey...don’t get any ideas. That was a one time thing. We got caught up in the moment.”

Goliath grinned at her, his fangs glinting in a wolfish smile.

“A very diverting moment,” he said reminiscing.

“You know how I feel about trysts in the castle,” Elisa reminded him.

“You don’t trust Xanatos not to spy on us, I understand,” Goliath acquiesced.

“Which is why I suggested a glide,” Elisa said as she stopped walking and turned to him, her hands on his belt.

“There’s this beautiful spot along the coast I found recently,” Goliath said as he ran his talons lightly through her hair.

“Oh?”

“Perhaps we could pack a picnic?”

“I’m liking this idea more and more.”

* * *

“This is really nice,” Elisa said as she snuggled up against Goliath and momentarily closed her eyes.

They’d set up a picnic on a remote beach, and they listened to the ocean, the waves crashing against the shore gently as they relaxed together.

“I love the sound of the ocean,” Goliath said, his voice somewhat distant with memory. Elisa was propped up against him, and he stroked her hair absentmindedly. “I grew up next to the sea, and the sounds of waves crashing against the rocky shore were my earliest lullabies. It’s comforting to me.”

“I find it fascinating that we both grew up next to the Atlantic, but on different sides...and centuries,” Elisa said as she watched a wave roll and crash.

“Separated by an ocean of water and time,” Goliath mused. “But together now, at last.”

Elisa found his hand and put her own in it. He curled his fingers around hers.

“Speaking of being separated, I’m going out of town next weekend,” Elisa said.

“You are? Where to?” Goliath said, sounding slightly alarmed.

“Flagstaff for Beth’s graduation,” Elisa replied.

Goliath didn’t seem comforted much by that explanation.

"How long will you be gone?” 

“It’s just the weekend. I leave on Friday, and I’ll return on Monday.”

Goliath nodded.

“But I need someone to take care of Cagney while I’m gone. Would you mind feeding him and looking after him for me?” Elisa asked.

“Not at all,” Goliath replied. "I'd be happy to."

"Thank you," Elisa said relieved. "I'd normally have my parents take care of him, but they'll be with me."

"Elisa," Goliath said, his tone gently chiding as he turned and looked at her more directly. "Cagney is your companion, and I am your mate, you don’t need to rely on your parents when it is something I can help you with. I should share in some of your responsibilities."

"You’ll have to clean his litter box," Elisa pointed out.

"I see," Goliath replied a little uneasily, but he masked it with a smile. "It's not a problem." 

“Thanks,” Elisa said gratefully.

“Of course,” Goliath said. She did so much for him, he was grateful when he had a chance to do something for her in return.

They returned to watching the ocean in silence, but the concerned look that lingered on Goliath’s face did not go unnoticed by Elisa.

"What’s bothering you?" she asked, her voice gentle as she wondered if he was slipping back into the brooding, dark thoughts that sometimes occupied his mind

“Hmm, it's nothing,” he said dismissively.

“No it’s not. Talk to me.”

“It’s just that...you will be hundreds of miles away. I won’t be there to help you if anything should happen…and it makes me feel anxious,” Goliath explained.

“I’m only going to be gone for a few days, Goliath. Nothing is going to happen,” Elisa said as she bumped him lightly with her shoulder.

Goliath gave her a pointed look.

“Why do you do that?” he said, his tone slightly exasperated.

“Do what?”

“Invite trouble.”

Elisa laughed gently.

“It will be fine,” she said.

Goliath sighed.

“Then I hope you have a chance to enjoy yourself. You deserve a break,” he said.

“I won’t enjoy myself nearly as much without you there,” Elisa replied regretfully.

“I imagine you will enjoy yourself far more than you did the last time we were there together,” Goliath said with a light smile.

Elisa laughed and looked up at him.

“You have a point, but still, I'll miss you.”

“I'll miss you, too,” Goliath replied, and he kissed her as they were serenaded by the sonorous sounds of the sea.


	3. Digging Up the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PART ONE: Elisa's Story

**May 9, 1997** **  
** **Arizona**

The nearest airport to Flagstaff was in Phoenix, which meant Elisa and her parents had to rent a car and drive two hours north in addition to the five hours they already spent on a plane. Beth had the misfortune of having two finals scheduled for the very last day before graduation, and she was unable to meet them at the airport, but they had plans to meet up with her that evening for dinner.

While they had a few hours to kill before they could check into their hotel rooms and meet with Beth, they went to the cemetery on the Hopi Reservation to pay Carlos, Peter’s father, their respects.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come with?” Diane asked as Peter shut off the engine to their rental car.

“Yeah...I have a few things I want to say alone...just some things I need to get off my chest,” Peter said.

Diane put her hand over his.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed of your emotions, Peter. Not with us,” she said.

“I know,” Peter said, and he squeezed her hand gently. “But some things need to be admitted aloud in private before they can be spoken of to others.”

Diane nodded reluctantly.

“We’ll wait here for you,” Elisa said from the back seat.

“Thank you,” Peter said, then he got out of the car and walked across the parking lot to the cemetery.

Carlos Maza's headstone was beneath a tree on a hill on the farthest side of the cemetery from the parking lot. It was a warm spring day, the sky was clear with high fluffy white clouds and plenty of bright sunshine, and it made the walk through the cemetery and the hike up the hill pleasant, even if it was a little hard on his knees.

He crouched down next to the grave marker and pulled away some of the weeds that had grown up around his father’s headstone before standing back up. 

“Hey, Pop,” he said, his voice melancholy and regretful but affectionate. “Thought I’d come by and say hi. It’s been a while, but at least it hasn’t been a few decades, like last time.”

He felt kind of silly standing there, talking to a stone slab. He'd been agnostic his whole adult life, but he had to admit he'd had to face a few things lately that had him questioning everything he thought he knew. Kachinas and fae. Gargoyles and mad scientists. Magic. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. 

“Beth is graduating tomorrow. You’d be really proud of her. Native American studies, if you can believe that. I wanted nothing to do with my heritage, but she’s making up for it, I guess. I only wish you were here to see her. To see us.”

He paused as some of the grief he had held back for so long welled up within him.

“I miss you," he said, his voice breaking. "and Mom, though I hate to admit that. I only wish I knew–" 

A gust of wind picked up suddenly that was so strong it nearly knocked him over, and he had to brace himself.

“ _Peter,_ ” the wind whispered.

He looked up at the sound, wondering if he was imagining things, and then he heard the same voice again.

“ _The barn._ ”

An icy chill ran down his spine and made the hairs on the back of his arms and neck stand up.

He glanced around the cemetery to see if anyone else was there, perhaps he had mistakenly heard someone else speak, but he was alone.

He heard a flapping and fluttering sound and looked up at the tree above his father’s grave and found it full of crows.

Dozens of them.

So many, the tree nearly looked black.

They hadn’t been there before when he showed up, and he hadn’t seen or heard any birds up until that point, it was as if they had just suddenly appeared. They didn't make their familiar hoarse caws or coos. They didn’t make a sound. They all just stared at him with beady obsidian eyes.

Then they opened their beaks as one, and made a sound in a harsh croak that sounded like, " _Joseph_."

He flinched at the sound, and for half a heartbeat he stared back, awed and confused, and a little frightened if he was honest with himself. Then as one they took off and there was a flutter and flurry of dark wings so loud it was nearly deafening, and he covered his ears to ward it off.

Then they were gone.

Peter stood there for several minutes breathing hard like he had exerted himself.

“Mind playing tricks,” he muttered as he attempted to shake off the odd encounter.

But he had heard the wind call his name.

Hadn't he?

He had heard his uncle's name, too.

Someone he hadn't thought about in a very long time.

If he recalled correctly, Joseph was a rather aloof man, distant and cold, even with his own brother. Their relationship had been strained in a way that made him grateful he had been an only child. He couldn’t cast too many stones, though. His relationship with Carlos had been pretty dysfunctional as well. The Mazas were really good at broken relationships, it seemed.

He gazed down at the little silver rental car in the parking lot where his wife and daughter were waiting.

His relationship with Elisa had gone through quite a rough patch as he struggled to accept her relationship with a being he had not realized even existed until a year ago, and as he compared and contrasted his relationships past and present, he realized there was a common issue.

Stubbornness and rigidity. The inability to look past one's own worldview, and he made a vow then and there to make sure his relationship with his family, his children, particularly his relationship with Elisa, did not suffer the way his had with his own parents.

He walked back to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. He sat there quietly for a few minutes contemplating.

“Are you alright, Dad?” Elisa asked, observing his silence.

“I’ve been thinking...while we’re here on the res...I’d like to check in with my Uncle Joseph.” he said, his voice a little hesitant as if he wasn’t sure it was something he actually wanted to do or not.

“I didn’t know you even had an uncle,” Elisa said carefully.

Diane glanced back at her and gave her a sympathetic look, knowing very well Peter didn’t reveal much about his family. Then she reached over to her husband and put a hand over his reassuringly.

"Of course we can, if that's what you want to do," she said.

Peter looked gratefully at her.

She never pushed him when it came to his family. She always respected his reluctance to talk about it, even though he knew it drove her mad at times that he was so cagey about his life before he moved to New York.

“I haven’t been in touch with him or seen him in years. He’s my dad’s older brother and my only known living blood relative. He never married or had children of his own, so when he’s gone, we will be the last of the Maza family line, and there won’t be any direct link left to the tribe here,” Peter said regretfully.

Elisa felt a slight pang of guilt. No wonder it upset her parents that her relationship with Goliath guaranteed she wouldn’t have children.

“I’d love to meet your uncle, Dad, ” Elisa said supportively.

Peter nodded gratefully, then he put the car into reverse and began pulling out of the parking space when Elisa noticed a dark shadow on his shoulder.

“Hey, you’ve got something…” Elisa leaned forward in the car and plucked a long black feather off the back of his shirt.

“Strange,” Peter said, as he viewed the object from the rearview mirror, and he tried to push away the memory of the odd encounter with the crows and the disembodied voice.

Elisa twirled the feather thoughtfully between her fingers for a few minutes, feeling the soft but rigid fibers of its structure and admired the way it gleamed iridescently in the light as her father drove them towards the town.

She gazed out the window at the blue sky above and the clouds as they passed overhead. There was so much sky out here in the west. It stretched on for miles without any tall buildings to obscure it. If it weren’t for the tall peaks of the San Francisco Mountains around the area to break up the skyline, she would almost feel a little agoraphobic.

She looked back down at the feather in her hands, only to realize it was gone. She looked around for a few minutes for it, but it had completely disappeared.

Odd, she thought, but thought nothing more of it other than a mild feeling of unease as she gazed thoughtfully back out the window.

* * *

Joseph Maza lived in an adobe style home on a small sheep ranch that was no longer operational on the outside of Kykotsmovi Village. Peter didn’t have a phone number for his uncle, nor did he know whether or not he still lived at the ranch or even if he was still alive for that matter, so their visit was rather unexpected.

The man who opened the door was a wrinkled, weathered, and leathery old man. He was arthritic and had a slight hunch to his posture that made him seem shorter than he was, and his short brush of hair had gone nearly white, but there was something still recognizable in his features that reminded Peter of his father, Carlos.

“What do you want?” he huffed suspiciously, his voice gravely with age. Elisa figured he had to at least be pushing 80.

“Uncle Joseph,” Peter said kindly, and somewhat timidly. “It’s me…Peter.”

Joseph squinted at him. His eyes were a little rheumy, and he wasn’t wearing any kind of corrective lenses, so it took him a moment to recognize him. The decades that had passed since they last saw each other didn’t help either.

“Peter! It is you! My god, you’ve—”

“Aged?” Peter laughed.

“It’s good to see you, boy!” Joseph Maza said as he grasped his shoulder, his gnarled hands dug into his arm with deceptive strength.

“Boy?” Peter laughed. “I’m pretty sure my gray hair would argue with that statement.”

“No matter how old you get, you’re still the nephew who used to chase my sheep!” Joseph said as he shook his hand scoldingly at him.

Peter rubbed the back of his neck.

“Ah, yeah…I kept trying to ride them, but they’d never let me.”

Joseph realized then that Peter wasn’t alone and he looked past him to Diane and Elisa. His eyes narrowed disapprovingly at Diane momentarily before they opened wide with surprise when they landed on Elisa.

“Carmen?” Joseph said in an awed whisper.

“Uhm…no,” Elisa said awkwardly.

“This is my eldest daughter, Elisa,” Peter said, introducing her to Joseph. “But...she does resemble my mom quite a bit.”

Elisa looked at him in surprise. Her dad rarely spoke of his mother, and he had never mentioned before that she resembled her. She’d never seen photos. Anytime she had asked her dad about his mother, he would change the subject. One time when he’d had a little too much to drink on Christmas a few years ago, she had weaseled a little information out of him, and he finally admitted to her that she had left when he was young, but he refused to say anymore about it.

Joseph barely seemed to acknowledge what her father had said and just continued to stare at Elisa in a way that made her feel rather uncomfortable.

“And this is my wife, Diane,” Peter said proudly, indicating his spouse.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Joseph,” Diane said warmly.

“Uh, why don’t you all come in then,” Joseph said, and gestured for them to step inside.

It did not go unnoticed by either of the Maza women that Joseph had completely dismissed Diane, and they shared a knowing look before they followed Peter into the house.

Joseph’s home was small and sparse in its furnishings, and it was quite obvious that the home had never seen a woman’s touch.

“I don’t have much to offer you, but I can get you all a glass of water if you’re thirsty,” Joseph said as he shuffled deeper into his house.

“No, I think we’re all fine,” Peter said.

He knew from experience that the water on the reservation wasn’t always reliable in not only its availability but also its potability, especially in the older more rural parts like the ranch.

Elisa looked around, assessing the place quickly as she did anytime she was in a new situation. The main room consisted of a small sitting area and a kitchen. There were two rooms and a bathroom down a hall off to the left. A door in the back led to the ranch out past the house, and through a window Elisa could see an old barn about a quarter mile away from the house.

Joseph took a seat in one of the chairs in the sitting room and her parents took a seat on the small sofa. The only other available seating was at the small dinette table, but there was a shotgun lying in plain sight on top of it. Joseph likely used it back when the ranch still had sheep and he needed to fend off coyotes during lambing season.

Elisa chose to stand and look at the few photos that were on the wall instead.

In one it looked like a native couple on their wedding day, dressed in traditional Hopi clothing. It had likely been taken somewhere around the first world war, based on the aging of the photo itself. There was another photo with the couple, older now, posed with two young boys. In another, there were just the two boys as young men, an older brother, Joseph, and a younger one, Carlos. There were no other photos. None of Peter or his family.

“What brings you here after all these years, Peter?” Joseph said, his tone slightly bitter and disapproving.

“My youngest daughter, Beth, is graduating from Flagstaff University tomorrow.”

Joseph raised his wiry white brows.

“A university educated daughter, eh?”

“Native American studies, too,” Diane added.

“Native American studies,” Joseph spat in a mocking tone. “She wouldn’t need a degree in it if she had grown up on the reservation with her people.”

“Anyway," Peter said uncomfortably, trying to change the subject. "Since we were here, I thought I’d visit. It’s been...a very long time."

“You didn’t even come to your father’s funeral,” Joseph said pointedly.

“I know…" Peter said ashamed. "I'm sorry. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with my past.”

Joseph pursed his lips.

“You have just the two girls?”

“We have a son as well, but he's back in New York, he...couldn’t make it out for the graduation, unfortunately.”

Joseph nodded approvingly at that, like having one son made up for the failure of having two daughters, and Elisa decided she didn’t like him much.

“I heard through the town gossip you were a cop?”

“Yeah, I’m a desk sergeant these days with the NYPD. Elisa’s actually a detective with the force, too,” Peter said proudly, practically ignoring all of Joseph's none-too-subtle jabs.

"You're what…30? Unmarried? One of those 'career' women?" he said it like he thought that was a joke.

Elisa folded her arms across her chest defensively.

"Something like that," she replied coolly.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and her glance darted towards the window just behind where Joseph sat. She gazed out of it and towards the ranch beyond the house.

In the field near the barn, stood a woman of young but indeterminate age in native Hopi clothing. Her hair was long and black, and it moved gently in the breeze. She wore a midnight blue manta dress that fell to mid calf and was belted about the waist with a red sash. It had only one wide sleeve on the right shoulder that went down nearly to the elbow.

Although she could not clearly see the woman’s eyes or her gaze from this distance, she knew she was looking directly at her as she lifted a hand and beckoned to her.

“There’s a woman out by the barn,” Elisa said, her tone somewhat distant.

“What?” Joseph said with disbelief. “There’s no one around here for miles.”

“You can look for yourself,” Elisa said to him, pulling her eyes temporarily away from the window and the strange woman.

Everyone stood and looked out the window that Elisa was pointing at.

“There’s no one there, Elisa,” Peter said.

“You’re seeing things, girl,” Joseph said dismissively, and she caught the words, “detective” said mockingly under his breath.

She scowled.

“I could have sworn...I know I saw someone,” Elisa said defensively.

“Perhaps...someone was just passing through?” Peter suggested.

“Not likely. People typically steer clear of here,” Joseph said.

“Why?” Elisa asked.

He shrugged.

“It could be it’s just off the beaten path, but people around these parts also don’t seem to like me much.”

“Gee I wonder why,” Elisa said sarcastically under her breath.

They all brushed off the incident, but Joseph seemed suspicious of her the rest of their visit and kept a close eye on her. Thankfully, they didn't stay long past that, and by then, Elisa was quite relieved to leave.


	4. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a tiny bit of steam in it because even when they're hundreds of miles apart, Elisa and Goliath still have intense chemistry.

Elisa threw herself onto the bed the moment she got to her hotel room. It had been a really long day, and she hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours at this point. She was exhausted.

She could have stayed with Beth, but her apartment was small and she would have had to sleep on the couch, which seemed unnecessary when Elisa could afford a couple nights stay at a moderately priced hotel. It wasn’t The Plaza by any means, but it was clean and most importantly, private.

With a groan of reluctance, she forced herself off the bed and into the small bathroom. At the very least she should brush her teeth before she passed out, and she set about getting ready for bed. She quickly brushed her teeth and then leaned over the sink to rinse her mouth.

When Elisa looked back up, she saw through the mirror a woman standing right behind her. The very same woman she had seen earlier at Joseph's ranch.

Elisa gasped and turned around quickly.

But no one was there.

“ _The barn_ ,” a feminine voice said. " _Joseph_." 

It was soft but crystal clear like it was said directly in her ear. 

She quickly looked back in the mirror.

But the woman had disappeared just as quickly as she had appeared.

Elisa spent the next several minutes tearing her hotel room apart searching for the intruder. She searched the whole bathroom, behind the shower curtain and the door. She searched the room, tearing back the sheets, looking under the bed and anywhere someone could possibly hide.

She checked the lock on the door and found it in place with no signs of tampering. 

She didn’t find any sign that anyone else had been there at all.

Except for a black feather she found on the floor of the bathroom, just like the one her father had on him, but the moment she took her eyes off of it, it disappeared, just like the other one.

"I'm losing my god damn mind," she muttered to herself. "I'm tired and I'm hallucinating."

But she still requested a room change…just to be safe.

* * *

Elisa sat up straight in bed just before 2:00 a.m. gasping for breath, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. She'd been having a nightmare. In the dream someone had been on top of her as they had her pressed against the ground, their hands around her throat, squeezing tighter and tighter. She kicked, scratched, and punched, but her blows grew weaker and weaker every second she couldn't fill her lungs with oxygen. Her panic eventually gave way to resigned acceptance as her life slowly ebbed away, and that's when she woke up gasping and frightened.

She’d never had a dream like that before, and it left her unnerved.

She tried to go back to sleep and found herself unable to, whether from the dream or her natural body clock being screwed up, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t help that this was not when she normally slept. She tried to relax and thought of Goliath in hopes of encouraging more pleasant dreams, and then she had a better idea, and she picked up the phone and dialed her home phone.

Because Arizona did not do daylight saving time like most of the country, she was three hours behind New York instead of two, which meant it was a little after 5:00 a.m. there, and Goliath might be at her apartment taking care of Cagney before he returned to the castle to sleep for the day.

The phone rang several times before it went to her answering machine. 

"Hey, Big Guy, if you're there, pick up. It's me," she said.

A few moments later there was a _click_ and Goliath's low voice came through the receiver.

"Elisa?" he said, his voice was concerned.

“Hi,” Elisa replied, relieved and comforted to hear his voice. "I'm glad I caught you."

“Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Yeah...I just couldn't sleep. Things have been weird here, and I missed you."

"Weird? Weird how?" Goliath asked, sounding alarmed. The protective leader and mate coming out.

Elisa wasn't sure what to say to him. That there was some strange woman that kept appearing to her?

"It's just…family stuff," she sighed. "We spent some time on the reservation today, and I met my dad's uncle for the first time. He's really odd…I dunno, I got a really bad vibe from him, but it may just be that I hardly know anything about him or my Hopi heritage, to be honest, and that's why he seemed so off to me. I've always been proud of my native heritage, but I’ve known little about it, and I've always identified more with my African side."

She exhaled loudly.

"Does that make any sense at all?"

She heard Goliath take a deep, thoughtful breath.

"I imagine it's somewhat akin to how I feel both loyal to my new home here in Manhattan and my old home back in Scotland."

"Yeah, something like that," Elisa smiled to herself as she relaxed into the bed, feeling much more at ease now that she was talking with Goliath.

“But you should not ignore your instincts, either, Elisa. If he has triggered them, be wary.”

“I will,” she responded, feeling reassured that Goliath did not dismiss her feelings. “How are things going there?”

“Good. I just fed Cagney and took care of his leavings.”

It gave Elisa a great deal of pleasure to picture Goliath cleaning out a litter box for some reason.

“How is everyone else?” she asked with a wide smile on her face.

“They are all well. Nothing out of the ordinary to report.”

“And how are you doing?”

“Well enough. I’m tired after a long patrol tonight, and...I miss you.”

“You just saw me yesterday,” Elisa said with a light laugh, but it warmed her heart to hear him say it anyway.

“I know, but I still miss you,” he admitted.

“I miss you, too,” Elisa agreed, and then she had a very sly, very wicked thought. 

“So…how much do you miss me?" she said, her tone teasing.

"Immensely. I wish it were Monday night and I could hold you in my arms once more," he admitted.

"And once you have me in your arms again, what would you do to me?" Elisa asked, her tone sultry.

"What do you mean?" Goliath asked, puzzled by the question.

Elisa smiled affectionately at his naiveté.

"I know what I'd like to do to you…" she said. “I'd run my hands over your broad chest, then down over your rippling abdomen. Then I'd tear your loincloth off and run my tongue along the length of your rock-hard cock."

"Elisa!" Goliath said scandalized, but there was a delighted tone in his voice as well.

"I'd devour you like you were an ice cream cone," she continued.

She heard a puff of breath in the receiver like someone had hit him.

"Stars above, Elisa…" he moaned.

It thrilled her to have that effect on him.

"What would you do to me?" she asked again, her tone coquettish and encouraging.

"I'd start by kissing that wonderfully lewd mouth of yours," Goliath said affectionately, and Elisa grinned smugly to herself.

"Then I'd kiss your neck, particularly that spot below your ear that makes you squirm so delightfully…" his voice had lowered, and Elisa bit her bottom lip.

She knew he'd be good at this once she introduced him to it, but until now she hadn't had an opportunity to.

“I’m squirming just thinking about it,” Elisa sighed.

She heard a soft aroused growl on the other end that made her toes curl.

"Then I'd run my tongue over the hollow of your throat, before I worked my way lower to your breasts."

Elisa closed her eyes and thought of him as she slowly trailed her fingers down her neck and collarbone and over her breasts.

"Yes," she sighed.

“I’d take one of your nipples into my mouth, and I’d slide my hand—Cagney! You shouldn't be out there!”

Elisa furrowed her brow and sat up.

“Goliath? Is everything alright?” she asked, alarmed.

There was no answer.

"Goliath?"

Still no answer.

"Goliath!" she said a little panicked.

She waited several long minutes, the line hadn't gone dead, so he hadn't hung up, but he wasn't responding either.

She looked at the time. The sun would be up soon in Manhattan.

She waited several more minutes for him to come back and then after thirty minutes had gone by, she hung up and called the castle. There was a direct line that very few people were privy to, but she was one of them.

"Yes?" Owen Burnett answered informally and somewhat tersely. This was not a business line so he did not answer it as such.

"Owen, could you do me a favor and check and see if Goliath made it home safely for me?"

"Detective Maza, last I checked, I was under the employ of Mr. Xanatos, not you,” Owen replied, his tone annoyed. “And as for favors, I do not think you know exactly what you are asking. Do you truly wish to be in _my_ debt?"

The way he said it, she knew he didn't mean Owen's debt…he meant the _other_ guy. Puck.

"Oh, uh, no–"

"Fortunately for you, I am standing in the courtyard, and I can clearly see Goliath asleep on the tower."

"Oh, thank god," she sighed with relief. She wondered what that was all about earlier with Cagney, and chalked it up to his unfamiliarity with using a phone.

"Thank you, Owen. Uh, have a good day." 

"You as well, detective." 

She hung up.

There wasn’t much she could do where she was and had to hope and trust that whatever happened earlier, Cagney was alright.

She tried to get some sleep after that, and though it was long in coming, at least she didn’t have any more nightmares.


	5. Spirits

**May 10, 1997**

The commencement ceremony went off without a hitch, and with all the pomp and circumstance as any graduation. They cheered wildly and noisily for Beth as she walked across the stage in her cap, gown, and honor cords to accept her diploma, even though they were supposed to hold their applause until after the end.

They took a few family photos outside afterwards, and as Elisa watched the crowds of people milling about, she saw her again.

The same woman who had appeared at Joseph's ranch, in her hotel room, and now here.

She walked slowly, serenely, almost as if she were caught in slow motion. No one else seemed to notice her, but the crowds moved around her and out of her way anyway.

Elisa watched her transfixed as the world slowed around them, voices became distant, and there was only her and the other woman. Their eyes met, and Elisa felt like she had been struck.

“ _Joseph_.”

She heard the name in her head like it had been whispered directly into her ear.

Elisa shook her head slightly.

“ _JOSEPH!_ ” the voice said more forcefully, and Elisa covered her ears.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and someone called her name.

She jumped and whirled towards the voice.

“My word, Elisa, you’re jumpy,” her mother said, cutting through her mental haze.

“What?” Elisa said slightly dazed, she blinked several times.

“We’re heading out, are you coming?” Diane said a little exasperated.

“Yeah…” Elisa said quietly and she looked back over to where she had seen the woman, but she was gone.

Again.

She turned back and her eyes fell upon her dad. He was also looking through the crowd as if he were looking for someone. Then he turned and looked at her.

And Elisa knew.

He’d seen her, too.

* * *

Afterwards, Elisa tried to find a moment to talk to her father in private about what they both experienced, but there was so much going on, she didn’t have a chance, and after dinner both her parents ducked out early claiming jet lag, and Beth had only one thing on her mind.

“Come drink with me!” she begged. "A bunch of grads are heading to a bar near campus for a few celebratory drinks. You should come!" 

"Oh, I don't know, me and bars haven't always gotten along," Elisa said warily.

“Please?” Beth pleaded.

Elisa hadn’t been to a bar since the night she had gotten drunk and had a one-night stand with an EMT.

“I don’t want to cramp your style, Beth,” Elisa said.

“Come oooooon. Pretty please? We’ve never gone drinking together before. It’ll be fun!”

“Fine,” Elisa said, rolling her eyes. “But I’m only having one drink. Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you.”

“Great! You can drive,” Beth said and tossed her keys to Elisa.

“Swell,” Elisa muttered.

* * *

The bar was full of rowdy graduates celebrating their recent educational achievements, and Elisa immediately regretted her decision. What she wouldn’t give to be curled up next to Goliath on the couch right now as he read a book to her or they watched a classic noir film together.

Instead, she ordered a light beer so that she could nurse it through the night and not even get buzzed. She did not want to get drunk, and more importantly, she wanted to keep an eye on her sister who was already three shots in.

Beth fluttered about like a social butterfly, dancing and acting like a typical young college student. Elisa’d had her share of fun back when she was in college, but she was nearly thirty, and bars were too loud now, and hangovers hit harder. They weren’t worth it.

“So, is Goliath, like, my brother-in-law now or something?” Beth said drunkenly at one point in the night.

Elisa was caught off guard by the question and nearly did a spit take with her beer. Unable to respond immediately, Beth jumped to conclusions…the right one, but not how Elisa would have explained it exactly.

“Oh my god!” she gasped. “And I wasn’t invited to the wedding?!” Beth practically shrieked.

“You definitely did not want to be there. Trust me,” Elisa scoffed.

“Why? Was it weird? Do you exchange vials of blood or something?” Beth teased and snorted a little at her own joke.

“No…it’s just, well, gargoyles don’t have weddings or ceremonies…they just...mate, and when they do, it's for life.”

“So, they don’t—and when you—oooooooh,” Beth said haltingly, her eyes growing wide as she connected the dots.

“So, does that mean…oh my god! Goliath was a _virgin_?!” she said loudly, attracting looks from a few people around them.

“Beth, honestly! He has a daughter, remember? You met her,” Elisa said, rolling her eyes. “They don’t just spring up from the ground.”

“Oh, yeah…good point. I forgot...” Beth said. "So, you didn't get to have a wedding? That's so sad."

She pouted dramatically.

"It's fine," Elisa said, and then she thought about letting her in on their secret. Beth was pretty drunk at this point, and she might not even remember she told her. Honestly, she needed to tell someone or she might burst.

"We're planning a commitment ceremony, actually."

"Like gay couples do? Elisa, I loooove the idea! You should definitely do it!" Beth swayed a little, and Elisa reached out and steadied her, growing concerned about how much Beth had had to drink so far tonight, but before she could say anything about it, Beth perked up.

"Oh! I love this song!" she exclaimed excitedly, and then she took off into the crowd where she started dancing drunkenly.

Elisa passed a hand over her face and sighed. 

"Remind me to never go drinking with you again," she mumbled to herself. She went back to the bar and bought a bottled water. It was nice and cold in her hands which was soothing since it was rather hot and stifling in the bar with all of the bodies pressed together inside, which made Elisa start to wonder about the fire code and whether or not the large crowd was violating it.

"Can I get you a drink," a male voice said next to her.

Oh, no, not this again, Elisa thought.

She turned to see a young white male with shaggy blond hair. He had the air and appearance of a typical frat boy. The kind who'd ply you with drinks and possibly spike them. She tried to hide her visible distaste.

"No, thank you. I'm good," Elisa turned him down.

"Come on. Just one drink?" he said with a sleazy grin that was meant to be charming. Elisa felt even more confident about her first impression of him.

"No," she said firmly, less politely.

Beth came back up to her from the crowd, a young man in tow. He looked native to her or possibly Hispanic. He was rather cute, but most notably he was gazing dreamily at Beth.

"How about a dance then?" the persistent frat boy said.

"No," Elisa said, moving past irritated and into angry.

“She’s engaged, Jeff. Fuck off,” Beth said, overhearing the man's appeals to Elisa.

“I don’t see a ring,” the man jeered.

Elisa sneered at his tone.

“Trust me…you’re barking up the wrong tree. Her fiancé is huuuuuge.”

“Beth,” Elisa said annoyed.

“But he’s not here now, is he?" the frat boy Beth called Jeff, said.

“No, he’s not here right now, but you should be more worried about me than my fiancé,” Elisa said as she pulled her badge out of her back pocket and held it up.

The frat boy scowled and finally turned away, merging back into the crowd. Elisa only hoped he got drunk and passed out before he tried to coerce some young woman into doing something she didn't want to. Elisa knew his type, and if she didn't have Beth to look after, she'd be keeping a close eye on him.

Elisa took her eyes off of the frat boy and turned back to her sister...who was now making out with the young man she had brought with her from the dance floor.

Elisa pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. 

"Okay, it's time to go," she said grumpily, and she pulled on Beth's arm.

"What? Why?" Beth protested, disengaging from her…friend.

"Because you're at the point where you can't make good decisions anymore."

“But I have been trying to get with Marco all year,” Beth hissed conspiratorially to her sister.

“Give him your number. If he really likes you, he’ll call you tomorrow when you’re both sober," Elisa argued.

Beth pouted.

“But he’s so cuuuute,”

“Yes he is, and tomorrow he’ll still be cute. Come on, it’s time to go home.”

“Fine, _Mom_ ,” Beth said sarcastically as she scowled at Elisa. Then she hastily wrote her phone number on a cocktail napkin and slipped it into Marco’s hands and mouthed “call me.” Then she followed her big sister out.

"Just because _you're_ having a lot of amazing sex, doesn't mean there isn’t any left for the rest of us," Beth whined. She stumbled a little, so Elisa put an arm around her to help steady her as they walked out to the parking lot to Beth's red truck.

"I'm not trying to cock block you, Beth. Feel free to have all the consensual and safe sex you want when you're sober. You'll thank me later," Elisa replied as she fished the keys out of her pocket, unlocked the passenger side door, and then helped her sister in.

When she shut the door, she saw the blurred reflection in the window of someone standing behind her. Worried that Jeff or someone else had followed them out, she spun around, squared her hips and sunk into a defensive position with her fists up.

But there was no one there.

“Ok, that was weird,” she muttered under her breath as she relaxed her stance. Beth slumped against the inside of the car door, her face pressed ridiculously against the glass.

 _“The barn,”_ a voice whispered near her ear, like someone was standing right next to her, and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

She whirled around again, but like the first time, no one was there.

" _Check the barn,_ " the voice said again and Elisa spun around a third time. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, and she breathed rapidly with fear.

No one was there, and Elisa shivered and hastily got into the truck. She didn’t want to be there another second. Elisa had to help Beth buckle her seatbelt, and then she peeled out of the bar’s parking lot and down the street. She released a few shaky breaths as she slowed her heart rate. Luckily, there wasn’t much traffic this time of night, and the drive was quiet and calm.

As she got closer to Beth’s apartment, a figure suddenly appeared in her headlights in the road in front of them.

Elisa slammed on the breaks and braced for impact as the vehicle drove through the figure, but nothing came. There was no thud of impact.

“Oh, god, I’m gonna hurl!” Beth said, and she opened the passenger door and puked out the side once the truck had come to a complete stop.

Elisa was too busy staring out the windshield to help her sister.

There had been someone in the road.

That same god damn woman she had seen so many times before.

And she had just hit her with her sister's truck

Her heart pounded as she sat clutching the steering wheel, her knuckles turning pale from lack of circulation. Her stomach had gone watery, and for a moment she thought she might throw up as well.

She put the truck in park and forced herself to get out of the vehicle, dreading what she would find, but there was no one. No body, no damage to the truck. There was…nothing.

Except for a long black crow feather on the hood of the truck. She picked it up and looked around. A few cars slowly drove past her as she stood in the middle of the road. She ran a shaky hand through her hair. 

This was ridiculous. She couldn't trust her eyes or her ears anymore.

Whatever was going on, it needed to stop before someone got hurt.


	6. Secrets Never Stay Buried Forever

**May 11, 1997**

Not wanting to leave her sister alone after having so much to drink, Elisa spent the night on Beth's sofa. That combined with the disturbing night she’d had where she thought she had hit someone with her sister’s truck, it did not make for a fitful night's rest. At some point she had managed to nod off, but then she had the same terrifying dream where she was being strangled, and after that, she decided to give up on sleep and got up and made coffee.

She was exhausted. She’d hardly had any sleep the last few nights. Perhaps that was why she was hearing voices and seeing things that weren't there? Sleep deprivation could do crazy things to your mind.

But she had gone without sleep for long stretches of time before without having any hallucinatory reactions to it, and the woman seemed far too real to her to be a delusion.

By the time noon rolled around, and Elisa had nearly drunk a whole pot of coffee, Beth was still in bed. So, Elisa decided to do the kind sisterly thing and loudly barged into her room.

“Rise and shine, Beth!” she announced, all but banging pots and pans together with her entrance.

There was a groan and Beth pulled the blanket up over her head.

“Come on. It's time to get up.”

“No,” Beth moaned. “I’m pretty sure I died. I’m dead. Leave me alone.”

Elisa laughed lightly at her expense.

“You need to eat something and get some fluids into you. It’ll make you feel better.”

Beth pounded her fists against her bed several times in a mock temper tantrum before she eventually sat up, her short hair going in several different directions.

“Ugh, remind me to never drink like that again,” she moaned, and she smacked her dry mouth several times like she had tasted something terrible.

“Yeah, you really overdid it,” Elisa chided gently. “I put some water and aspirin on your nightstand. Take that first. Then take a shower. It’ll help you feel more human.”

While Beth was convalescing in the shower, their father called.

“Joseph has a bunch of things that used to belong to my dad, old photographs and mementos, things of that nature that he wanted me to take off his hands. I would have grabbed them Friday, but we were already running late to meet Beth, and there’s a lot to go through. Anyway, I’m heading to the ranch today to get them. Your mother isn’t really interested in going out there again. Can’t say I blame her, Joseph was kind of…”

“An asshole?” Elisa offered.

“I was going to say he was a prick, but yeah. You gals can all have a nice day together while I’m gone. Grab some lunch together…do...girly things, I don't know."

Elisa laughed lightly at her father, and then she thought about all of the strange encounters she'd been having. She knew her dad had seen that Hopi woman, and she had the strong impression she needed to go back to Joseph's ranch with him.

She heard Beth retching in the shower and grimaced. She was in no shape to go anywhere.

"I don't know if Beth is up for much today, she had a little too much fun last night, but I could go with you to the ranch if mom is willing to babysit Beth?"

“I think your mom would be ok with that arrangement.”

In another hour, Elisa and her dad were off to Joseph’s old sheep ranch again.

* * *

What Elisa had hoped would be a quick trip, turned into a massive undertaking.

There were dozens of boxes of Carlos’s things stacked up in Joseph’s unused bedroom. Apparently, he hadn’t bothered to organize any of his brother’s effects after he had died and just tossed them randomly into boxes. Peter was now carefully going through them and deciding what was worth shipping back home.

They had been at it for hours...

But Elisa did get to hear him speak more about his life on the reservation and his parents than she had ever heard him speak in her whole life, and that made it worth it.

Sometimes he would laugh or smile, but other times, he would grow morose as he recalled old memories. One photo in particular elicited a pensive, if not sorrowful, reaction from him.

“This is from the last day I ever saw my mother” he said somberly. “It was the day of the Bean Dance. It’s a ritual where all the kachina dance to prepare for the next growing season. I was ten, and it was the first time I was initiated into the kachina. She and my dad told me afterwards that they were separating and...I ran off. I hid thinking if they were too busy searching for me, they wouldn't split and they'd somehow reconcile instead," he laughed deprecatingly at himself. "The naive hope of a child, I guess. My mother left while I was off sulking. I never got to say goodbye.”

He handed the photo over to her. Elisa took one look at it and reacted to it like it had burned her.

The woman in the photo standing next to her father as a boy, was the same woman she had seen multiple times that weekend.

“Is something wrong?” Peter asked her.

“I…" she paused and then looked at her father. "I saw this woman at Beth's graduation…and I think you did, too."

Peter looked long and hard at her.

"It was probably just someone who looked like her," Peter said rationally.

"Perhaps, but…coincidences like this don't just happen...not to us," Elisa countered.

Peter sighed.

"I don't know who that was," he said. "If it was my mother, she wouldn't look young like this. She'd look more like Joseph."

"If she was still alive, yeah, but…what if she isn't?" 

"What are you saying? We've been seeing a ghost?" Peter scoffed.

Elisa shrugged.

"Yeah. Maybe. I've seen weirder things, Dad, and so have you."

The furrow between Peter's eyes only grew deeper. He said nothing as he stared at the photo.

"Did she…say anything to you?" Elisa asked tentatively.

Peter's eyes met hers and they flashed curiously before they darted to the doorway.

"It's starting to get late. Are you two done in here yet?" Joseph said gruffly.

"Yeah, we'll finish up soon," Peter replied.

Joseph scowled and then shuffled off back to his bedroom.

"He's a real ball of sunshine," Elisa snarked.

Peter chuckled lightly.

"I should start boxing some of this up and haul it out to the car," he said.

"I think we left the tape gun in the kitchen, I'll go grab it."

"Thanks," Peter said as he carefully slipped the photo of him and his mother back into its album.

Elisa walked out into the kitchen and spotted the tape gun on the counter, she picked it up, and as she started to walk back towards the back room, she saw movement through the window in the sitting room.

The sun was going down, but she could clearly see the Hopi woman, the one who looked just like Carmen Maza, her grandmother, standing in the field by the barn. Her eyes locked on hers, and she beckoned to her, and then turned and walked into the barn.

“That’s it,” Elisa said angrily. She set the tape gun back down on the counter and grabbed a large flashlight that had been left out, then she stepped outside and marched determinedly across the yard and to the barn. She was going to figure out who she was and what she wanted once and for all.

She lost nearly all her courage as soon as she stepped inside.

The light hadn't quite faded outside, but the darkness inside the barn was nearly oppressive. She flipped the switch on the flashlight, and was relieved when it turned on. The beam reflected off the millions of dust motes in the air as she swept it around looking for the woman.

“Whoever you are...show yourself,” she called out.

There was no answer.

Not that she was surprised.

“I’m with the police, and you are trespassing,” she added, mostly to hear her own voice and break the tension caused by the quiet and stillness.

There was no sound, no scurry of rodent feet or wings fluttering as birds settled in the rafters

There was just absolute horridly empty silence.

She slowly and cautiously looked around, sweeping the light methodically back and forth, searching thoroughly.

There were no signs of tracks in the dirt aside from her own. There were no signs of any tracks at all, not even mice or rats, which was a relief. The last thing she wanted to do was contract the hantavirus from mouse shit in an old rotting barn.

She started to wonder if she had been seeing things. This whole weekend was making her feel crazy, like someone was trying to gaslight her.

After everything she had been through, was her mind finally cracking?

But then why was her father seeing the same things?

She was about to give up her search and leave when she heard a crash. She whirled around towards the noise, her heart beating rapidly from the rush of adrenaline.

The flashlight landed on an old pitchfork and a shovel that had fallen over against the back of the barn. The curved edge of the shovel’s blade rested on the dirt, and it was still rocking slightly from the fall.

She slowly walked over to the tools, her breathing quickening from fear as she swept her light back and forth, her hand shaking causing the light to dance. She felt the darkness close around her almost like a physical thing as she walked deeper into the barn. It was so quiet, she could hear her own ears ringing after the loud clang of the tools moments before. She could see no reason why they had fallen over unless they hadn’t been put away properly to begin with, but they also looked rusted and worn with age. No one had used them in a very long time.

She stared at the tools for a while like she was trying to solve a puzzle. The woman, her grandmother perhaps, had repeatedly told her two things everytime she had appeared: Joseph, and the barn.

Well, she was in Joseph's barn. What the fuck was she supposed to do?

She swept the flashlight around again, and something else caught her attention. On the ground next to where the tools had fallen over, there was a large rectangular depression in the earth.

From her years working as a cop, she recognized what that could be. She glanced suspiciously towards the open barn door and towards the house, and then she picked up the shovel, and almost as if she was possessed, she started digging into the hard earth.

It was probably just a depression, she told herself. Water could have gotten in through the roof at some point, but there wasn’t an obvious hole in the roof above, and the depression was more than five feet in length.

When a body was buried without a casket or some other way to preserve it from decomposing, the ground around it would sink as the body beneath began to desiccate once the flesh had rotted away. There weren’t a lot of places to bury bodies in Manhattan, but she’d seen it once before in a community garden where someone had tried to hide a body.

She kept digging. She was starting to sweat, and it chilled on her skin. It got cold quickly out here after the sun went down, the dry air didn’t hold heat well, and though it was May, the nights were still cold.

She kept thinking of the woman, and the words that had been said to her over and over.

Joseph.

The barn.

There was a reason. A reason she was here now.

When the shovel struck something solid, she set it aside and started using her hands to brush the dirt away from the object. She dug at the hard clay earth, scraping her fingers and knuckles against it, possessed by some feeling of urgency she couldn't justify or comprehend, but she kept digging. She dug until she had moved enough dirt and earth aside to reveal two empty eye sockets and the morbid grin of a human skull staring up at her from the shallow grave.

* * *

Joseph had hoped Peter would just come by and pick up the boxes and be on his way tonight, but unfortunately he wanted to peruse through them as he reminisced. Joseph did not have time nor did he care to remember the past. The past and all its ghosts were best left where they belonged. It was all junk to him, anyway, and he honestly didn’t know why he had hung onto any of it.

He eventually had enough and wandered off to his bedroom to watch a program on his old television set, but when he realized he could no longer hear them talking, he decided to check and see if they had left, so he turned off the TV and shuffled off into the other room where he found only Peter, still rummaging through boxes.

"Where has your daughter gone off to?" Joseph asked him.

Peter looked up.

“She went to get the packaging tape in the kitchen, but that was a while ago, come to think of it,” he said.

Joseph turned away and left Peter alone in the back room.

It was easy to see his nephew’s nosy daughter was no longer in the house. The back door was wide open, and as he looked out towards the barn, he saw a faint glow coming out of the wide open door.

He scowled angrily and grabbed the shotgun he kept loaded on the table and stomped off through the yard and to the barn.

* * *

"What are you doing, girl?"

Elisa looked up from where she was kneeling on the dirt. She had uncovered most of the skeletal remains of what could only be the woman who everyone thought had left 45 years ago. After so long, only the bones and clothing remained. Elisa wasn't a forensic scientist, and could not be one-hundred percent certain of who was buried here, but the clothing was the same clothing from the photo taken of her grandmother the day she had left, down to the exact turquoise bead necklace she wore.

It had to be her.

Carmen Maza.

She looked up at Joseph with grim understanding.

Joseph had his shotgun in his hands.

"She didn't run off," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"You shouldn't have gone snooping around," Joseph said coldly.

"What happened to her?!" Elisa demanded.

“Exactly what she deserved!” Joseph growled.

Elisa reached slowly for her gun and realized she hadn't packed it. She didn't think she would need it this weekend when she was supposed to be on vacation.

"Keep your hands up," Joseph barked, and Elisa complied.

"What did you do to her?" Elisa demanded.

"She made me do it!" Joseph spat as he walked further into the barn, closer to her, and away from the door where he could be seen.

“What did she make you do, Joseph?” Elisa asked calmly, trying to buy herself time. She had her own guesses, but she wanted to hear him say it.

"I found her over here in the barn, one day, snooping around. Said she was looking for your father, but I knew what she really wanted, what she really came over for. My brother had finally cast her off, and she came crawling to me. When I tried to give her what she wanted, she fought me. The bitch!" he spat, spittle flying from his lips. “But she got what was coming to her.”

“You killed her," Elisa accused.

"I had no choice!” Joseph shouted, shaking the shotgun in his hands. “She said it was all my fault, that she was going to tell Carlos! She was going to lie and tell him I had forced myself on her when she had practically begged me to do it!"

"Joseph, why don't you put down the gun and–"

"You're all the same! Nosy whores who can't mind their own business," Joseph shouted and he lifted the shotgun up.

Elisa went rigid. This man was a murderer, and she was alone with him in a barn without her gun or any gargoyles within two thousand miles to help her, and she suddenly felt very alone and very afraid.

She could scream or cry for help, but she would be dead before her father could run across the field from the house and to the barn.

This was not how she wanted to go, on her knees in the dirt, and her heart broke at the thought of her father finding her like that.

Murdered by the same man who killed his own mother in the very same place.

Though it was highly unlikely Joseph would let either of them leave the ranch alive now.

"You should have minded your own damn business, girl. This is your fault," Joseph said coldly, and he weakly aimed the shotgun at her head.

* * *

Peter had just picked up an old pottery bowl that had belonged to his mother when he felt something brush against his neck, making the little hairs stand up, and he looked up from the bowl and surveyed the room.

" _Peter,_ " a dry voice whispered, and his breath fogged as if the temperature had suddenly plunged, and he shivered.

Where had Elisa and Joseph gone off to?

" _Peter,_ " the voice said again, more insistently, and then a translucent figure, almost like a moonbeam and just over five feet tall, appeared in the doorway. For a brief moment, he thought it was Elisa, but the woman was much shorter than his daughter, and he could see right through her to the sitting room and kitchen beyond.

He dropped the bowl he held in his hands, and it cracked in two when it hit the ground.

" _Help her_ ," the apparition said.

He knew that voice.

It was a voice he would never forget even after all these years. The same voice that had sung him to sleep at night when he was frightened or sick. The same voice that had scolded him for running in the house and soothed him when he was hurt.

He felt his chest tighten.

He knew the woman who stood in front of him…but it couldn't possibly be.

" _She’s in danger, Peter,_ " she said.

"Who?" he asked tentatively, his voice shaking.

He didn’t know how this was happening, how it was possible, but his mother was standing right in front of him, looking the exact same way she had on the last day he had seen her.

" _Your daughter_."

“Elisa?” Peter said, alarmed.

“ _The barn,_ ” she said urgently. “ _Go quickly!_ ”

“The barn?” Peter repeated.

“ _GOOO NOOOW!_ ” she cried loudly, filling the room with her voice, commanding him, and then she faded away.

Peter moved quickly, his heart gripped with the urgency with which he had been commanded, though his rational mind kept telling him this wasn’t possible, his mother appearing to him and warning him that his daughter was in danger. A woman he hadn’t seen in 45 years. But he ran anyway. He ran through the house and flew out the back door. He could hear raised voices coming from the barn, and he ran out into the growing dark.


	7. Absence Is a House So Vast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion to part 1.

The scene Peter stumbled upon in the barn was a punch to the gut, and it turned his blood to ice. Joseph had a shotgun trained on his daughter who was kneeling on the dirt floor, her hands up in a defensive position. A flashlight lay on the ground, casting long harsh shadows of the two of them on the opposite wall.

"You don't want to do this. Put the gun down, Joseph," Elisa said calmly, but Peter could see the fear in her eyes. They darted quickly over to him as soon as he stepped into the barn, and the fear turned to hope.

"You're just like her," Joseph seethed, and he put his finger on the trigger.

"No!" Peter cried out, and he threw himself in front of his daughter and between Joseph and his shotgun.

“Get out of the way, boy!” Joseph barked.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Peter shouted.

And then a figure appeared in front of Peter. Solid this time. She stared coldly down the barrel of Joseph’s shotgun.

Elisa stood up from where she had been kneeling and put her hands on her father’s arm.

“It’s her!” she said amazed.

“You see her, too?” Peter said shocked by all of the events that were unfolding.

"No! It can't be!" Joseph yelled, and he stumbled and tripped, falling backwards. He squeezed the trigger of the shotgun, and it went off with a loud roar, spraying buckshot into the frame of the barn behind and off to the side of where Elisa and her father were standing. It left a large hole in the wall as wood splintered off in a wild spray, but no one was hurt. 

The shotgun fell from his hands and onto the ground, and he gasped in shock.

"It can't be," Joseph cried weakly from where he lay.

Peter dove forward and grabbed the shotgun from where it had landed, then he swiftly unloaded it with practiced hands.

“Are you alright?” he asked as he gathered Elisa up in his arms and held her fiercely.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Dad,” Elisa said as she hugged him back. “but...there’s something you need to see.”

She pulled away from her father and retrieved the flashlight from the ground and shined it down onto a freshly dug hole and the skeletal remains that lay inside it.

"Oh my god!" Peter uttered with disbelief. "Is that–"

Elisa nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, I think so."

He recognized the dress and the turquoise necklace, and then he turned and looked at the woman who stood before them. She gazed curiously and sadly down at the corpse in the dirt.

Peter gazed back at Joseph as everything fell into place. He didn’t know how or why, but he knew the truth now. His mother hadn’t run off. She had never left.

He handed Elisa the shotgun and stormed over to his uncle, rage and pain consuming him. He grabbed him by the front of his shirt with both hands and pulled the old man’s torso up off the ground as he bent over him.

“All these years,” he seethed through his teeth. “We all thought she had run off, but you killed her! Didn’t you?!” He was shouting now.

Joseph gasped weakly, his mouth forming words he couldn’t get out, and Peter realized it wasn't just from fright.

"Go inside. Call the police. Tell them we need an ambulance. I think he’s having a heart attack," Peter ordered Elisa.

Elisa hesitated, not wanting to leave her father, and then she ran out of the barn and to the house.

His uncle looked up at him, his eyes wide, and he gasped repeatedly, making fish like movements with his mouth, and then he took one big gasping breath and lost consciousness.

“You’re not getting off that easily!” Peter growled angrily as he laid him back down and checked his pulse and his breathing before he began CPR.

He continued for several minutes until the woman he had completely forgotten was even there spoke to him.

“He is gone, Peter Maza,” she said gently, her voice otherworldly, and a distant part of his mind realized it was different from the voice he had heard before in the house.

He stopped compressions and sat down numbly in the dirt.

When Elisa returned to the barn after calling the tribal police, she found Peter staring up at the woman who had appeared so many times to them both the last few days.

“I know what you’re thinking, child, and although the body in the ground is indeed your mother’s, it is not mine,” the woman said compassionately.

And then they both saw it. Although the woman before them shockingly resembled Carmen Maza, there were several differences. She was taller, the face shape was a little wider, the eyes more cat-eyed, and her ears were delicately pointed instead of round, but the resemblance was uncanny.

Elisa knelt behind her father and put her hands on him as she buoyed him up and took strength from him at the same time.

“Who are you?” Peter demanded.

“I have many names. Angwusnasomtaka. Tümas. Crow Mother.”

“Crow Mother…” Peter said with disbelief. “Forty-five years ago, my mother performed the Bean Dance as the Crow Mother kachina the day she disappeared.”

Crow Mother nodded.

“Your mother once took on my mantle, and with her faith she took a part of me into her. Her sudden and violent death made it so I could not get it back...until now,” she replied. “Oberon’s laws being what they are.”

"Oberon’s laws…" Elisa muttered. "You're one of Oberon's children then."

“I am.”

"You were the one I kept seeing,” Elisa said angrily. “You appeared to me several times over the last few days: at the bar…in the street...in my god-damn hotel room! I thought I was losing my mind!"

"I apologize for the brief, and what must have been frightening encounters,” Crow Mother explained. “I was…evading those who were trying to force me back to Avalon before I could complete my task, and I could only appear irregularly for fleeting moments," Crow Mother explained.

"Let me guess…the Weird Sisters?" Elisa said.

Crow Mother inclined her head in admiration of her deductive skills.

"Indeed."

"So that was you who warned me that Elisa was in danger a few minutes ago back in the house?" 

Crow Mother tilted her head to the side.

"That was not me, child."

"Then…who was that?" Peter asked, confused.

“You already know the answer to that,” Crow Mother said kindly.

And Peter did know.

It  _ had _ been his mother that time, afterall, warning him that his daughter’s life was in danger.

"Although the tether that has held her to this world has grown weak, she was able to manifest just long enough to warn you, out of the love she has for you."

"Is she…is she still here?" Peter asked tearfully.

"Yes…but just barely. She has fulfilled her task, and it is time for her to go."

"Could you…could you tell her I love her," Peter said, his voice breaking.

Elisa held her father tighter.

"She has heard you,” Crow Mother said, and she tilted her head as if listening to someone, and Elisa could almost hear it. A soft whisper like wind in the leaves. “And she wants you to know that she would have never left you if it had been her choice.”

Peter bowed his head with grief.

Crow Mother crouched down and reverently touched Carmen Maza’s remains in the ground. A faint glow rose out of the earth and into the fae woman, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“My task here is done...as is hers,” she said. “I am sorry for the grief you have borne all these years, and for the grief that lies ahead of you. I wish you comfort in the coming days as you come to terms with the past.”

Crow mother turned to leave and glanced back at Elisa and Peter.

“Coyote sends his regards, by the way,” she said. “Though I doubt this is the last time his path or mine shall cross with yours,” and then she disappeared, leaving a few black crow feathers in her wake that fluttered quietly to the ground.

They were alone now, just Elisa and her father, in the dark of night in the barn where the remains of Carmen Maza had lain hidden and buried for decades.

“My dad…" Peter said, breaking the silence, his voice thick with tears. "I thought he had driven her off. They would fight at times...and they had a really big fight the day before I thought she had left. I blamed him, and it took me until after he had passed to finally forgive him. It ruined our relationship...but it was Joseph’s fault. I was robbed of years together with both my parents because of him."

"Oh, Dad…" Elisa said, and her own tears fell.

"She was here…this whole time," Peter said, and something inside him just...broke. He groaned and leaned forward as a sob broke free, and he wept.

Elisa threw her arms around him and tried to comfort him as they waited for the police to arrive.

* * *

Crow Mother met Coyote up on a hill that overlooked Kykotsmovi Village.

“Thank you for keeping them off my back tonight,” she said gratefully to her son.

“Hey, it was fun. The old birds are easy to goude,” he said with a smirk. “Were you successful?”

“I was. Now we should return and face Oberon,” Crow Mother said with a sigh. “Before our punishment grows worse.”

It was then the three Weird Sisters appeared before them. Angry from the wild goose chase Coyote had kept them on that evening.

“Your antics are over now,” Phoebe said angrily.

“Oberon awaits you,” Selene said.

“It is time–” Luna began to say, and then her eyes grew wide, and her body went rigid as if someone had shocked her with an electric probe.

“She has returned,” Luna said, her voice terrified.

Phoebe and Selene turned to their sister with stark fear on their faces.

And then they all vanished in a flash of fae-green light.

Crow Mother and Coyote turned to each other.

“Who has returned?” Coyote asked, and Crow Mother looked worriedly at him.

“I only recall one being who warranted such a reaction,” she said. “And if she is free...we are all in very grave danger.”

**One Week Later**

Elisa remained in Arizona for several days beyond when she had planned to return to New York to help her parents as they dealt with the aftermath of finding her grandmother’s remains and Joseph’s death. The investigation was still underway, awaiting results from a forensic anthropologist, but cursory evidence pointed towards Carmen having been strangled to death.

Elisa couldn’t help but think of the horrible dreams she’d had, and she knew their memory would linger with her for a long time.

After a longer absence than either of them had anticipated, Goliath and Elisa were reunited at last. He had glided over to her apartment the night she was meant to finally return, and waited with barely contained anticipation.

Elisa dumped her suitcase at the front door and flung herself into Goliath’s arms just as soon as she had the door closed behind her.

“God, I missed you,” Elisa said as she held him tightly, her arms around his neck. The weight of his arms and wings felt comforting and reassuring around her.

“I cannot begin to express how relieved and grateful I am to have you back home,” Goliath sighed into her hair as he held her tightly.

They held each other for several moments, feeling complete and whole once more.

“I’m really glad things were a lot calmer here while I was gone,” Elisa sighed eventually, breaking the silence.

Goliath pressed his eyes closed in a grimace, and then he gently set Elisa down on her feet. She looked up at him with concern as she observed the look on his face. He did not want to tell her right now, to alarm her, or put more on her already full plate, but she was sure to find out eventually, and he did not want dishonesty to become a thing in their relationship.

He took a deep breath.

“There is something I need to tell you...”


	8. Murphy's Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PART TWO: Goliath's Story

**May 10, 1997** **  
** **5:00 a.m.** **  
** **Elisa’s Loft, NY**

Goliath swung by Elisa’s place on his way home from patrol. She had left the day before for Arizona, and he had already come by her place earlier that night to feed Cagney while she was gone. He used the key Elisa had given him months ago to unlock the window, then he stepped in and looked around. Everything seemed to be in place still. Nothing was amiss, which was good.

He called out for Cagney and the cat padded swiftly and nearly silently out of the bedroom where he had been napping.

He rubbed against Goliath’s feet and purred happily, grateful for company.

He set about preparing a meal for the cat, opening a can of food that smelled awful to Goliath, but Cagney ate it with gusto. Then he checked on the litter box. A distasteful chore, but one that had to be done, otherwise Cagney would stop using the litter box and would start using the potted plants instead.

He had just finished and washed up when he heard the phone ring. He ignored it as it was not like someone would be calling for him, and the answering machine would get it anyway.

"Hey, Big Guy, if you're there pick up. It's me," Elisa’s voice came over the answering machine’s speaker.

He practically dove across the room in his haste to answer the phone.

"Elisa?" he said, a little flustered by his unfamiliarity with the device.

“Hi,” Elisa replied. "I'm glad I caught you."

It was good to hear her voice, but he was concerned that she would call him.

“Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Yeah...I just couldn't sleep. Things have been weird here, and I missed you."

Goliath furrowed his brow. He had been worried about her being away, and now she was calling him worried about something? Elisa rarely worried about anything without reason.

"Weird? Weird how?" he asked.

"It's just…family stuff," she sighed. "We spent some time on the reservation today, and I met my dad's uncle for the first time. He's really odd…I dunno, I got a really bad vibe from him, but it may just be that I hardly know anything about him or my Hopi heritage, to be honest, and that's why he seemed so off to me. I've always been proud of my native heritage, but I’ve known little about it, and I've always identified more with my African side."

Goliath mused over her words. She was hiding something from him, he could tell by the tone in her voice, but she wasn't ready to share what it was yet. Elisa had good instincts, if something about her father’s uncle set her off, she should trust that.

She exhaled loudly into the phone.

"Does that make any sense at all?"

"I imagine it's somewhat akin to how I feel both loyal to my new home here in Manhattan and my old home back in Scotland,” he replied.

"Yeah, something like that," her voice sounded brighter.

“But you should not ignore your instincts, either, Elisa. If he has triggered them, be wary.”

“I will...How are things going there?”

“Good. I just fed Cagney and took care of his leavings.”

“How is everyone else?”

He could practically hear the smile in her voice.

“They are all well. Nothing out of the ordinary to report.”

“And how are you doing?” she asked.

“Well enough. I’m tired after a long patrol tonight, and...I miss you.”

“You just saw me yesterday,” Elisa said with a light laugh.

“I know, but I still miss you,” he admitted.

“I miss you, too,” Elisa agreed.

Goliath smiled to himself and his posture relaxed. 

“So…how much do you miss me?" she asked, her tone teasing.

"Immensely. I wish it were Monday night and I could hold you in my arms once more," he admitted.

"And once you have me in your arms again, what would you do to me?" Elisa asked, her tone sultry.

"What do you mean?" Goliath asked, puzzled.

"I know what I'd like to do to you…" she said. “I'd run my hands over your broad chest, then down over your rippling abdomen. Then I'd tear your loincloth off and run my tongue along the length of your rock-hard cock."

"Elisa!" Goliath said, scandalized by her explicit language. It wasn’t unusual for them to speak in such a way with each other in the bedroom, but...over the phone? It was somehow more salacious and, at the same time, lasciviously delightful.

"I'd devour you like you were an ice cream cone," she continued.

Goliath closed his eyes briefly and exhaled loudly as he imagined Elisa’s mouth on him.

"Stars above, Elisa…" he moaned.

"What would you do to me?" she asked again, her tone coquettish and encouraging.

"I'd start by kissing that wonderfully lewd mouth of yours," Goliath said affectionately.

Elisa’s phone was a cordless one and he settled down on the sofa with it and let his thoughts drift pleasantly about his mate.

"Then I'd kiss your neck, particularly that spot below your ear that makes you squirm so delightfully…" he said.

“I’m squirming just thinking about it,” Elisa sighed in reply.

He growled softly as he pictured her, pinned beneath him, his mouth on her throat, his hands on her body…

"Then I'd run my tongue over the hollow of your throat, before I worked my way lower to your breasts," he continued.

"Yes," Elisa sighed.

He wondered if she was touching herself, and he grew even harder at the thought.

“I’d take one of your nipples in my mouth, and I’d slide my hand—” he happened to look over at the window just then and saw it ajar. He must not have closed it properly and Elisa’s cat had nudged it open or the wind had popped it open, but now Cagney was out on the roof, walking right along the edge of the building.

“Cagney! You shouldn't be out there!” he shouted.

He dropped the phone and dashed out the window and onto the roof.

He scooped up the cat and held him gently.

“I don’t think your mistress would want you out here,” he said, as he sighed with relief that nothing had happened to Cagney. Although cats had excellent balance, the roof of Elisa’s building was still a long way up from the ground; one slip and the cat would be a smear on the pavement below.

And if something happened to Elisa’s cat while he was under his care, he would not forgive himself.

He heard a  _ click _ and turned around to find the window had fallen closed. He tried to open it but found it locked. He reached for his key in his pouch but it wasn’t there.

He then recalled where he had left it, and peering through the window, saw it resting upon the kitchen counter top.

Goliath scowled and looked down at the cat in his arms.

Cagney meowed plaintively at him.

“Jalapeña,” he sighed.

* * *

Goliath ultimately decided to take Cagney back to the castle with him. The feline did not enjoy the glide over and left several scratches and claw marks on his forearms, but he knew that Elisa would not appreciate it if he broke into her apartment, leaving it vulnerable to anyone who had nefarious intent. Matt had a spare key to her place. He would contact him tomorrow evening and get Cagney back where he belonged.

He felt terribly about leaving Elisa on the phone, wondering what happened, and hoped she would forgive him when he explained what occurred. For now, he had to take care of Cagney. It would be dawn soon, and with no other recourse, he put the cat in the bathroom reserved for the clan’s use. He turned the tap on, and let a little trickle run out so that he could get a drink from the sink.

“I apologize for this, Cagney, but I also must keep you safe.”

The cat meowed, and it almost sounded like a question.

“I will see you in the evening,” he said and patted him gently on his head. The cat purred and wound himself around his foot. Goliath gently shoved him back, and then he shut the door and left the cat alone who meowed forlornly and scratched at the door.


	9. Curiosity Killed the Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry about the chapter title, I just couldn't resist.

Cagney was a street cat.

Or at least he was.

He had lived a year on the street before he had found his mistress, and she had taken him home with her.

Sometimes he missed the freedom of roaming, but he liked the soft warm bed and regular meals provided him, and gentle hands that stroked his fur and scratched his itches.

But now he was trapped inside a tiny room.

He spent a little time sniffing and investigating, and cleaning his fur, but he found nothing to hold his interest for long.

He eyed the door, its handle, and his only means for escape.

He leapt at it and grabbed it with his paws, and he noticed when he hung on it, the door moved slightly.

He leapt again and this time the door swung open an inch. Enough for him to push the door open far enough to get through. He proudly sauntered out, his tail high, the tip twitching slightly as he trotted down the unfamiliar hallway.

He found lots of rooms with lots of smells, and if anyone came along, he darted and hid. He did not know any of these people, and he had learned on the street that not every hand touched with kindness. Sometimes, they hurt.

He found some potted plants to dig in and relieve himself in, and then he proceeded to check out his new surroundings.

He looked all over for his mistress, but could not find her.

He looked for the beings with wings and wonderful claws, but could not find them either.

He heard a gentle feminine voice, and momentarily thought it was his mistress, but realized it wasn’t as he got closer, but he peered into the room anyway.

A woman with red hair rocked a small human in her arms. Cagney watched curiously, hunched down in the shadows, his green eyes gleaming.

She said something in a kind voice before setting the small human on the floor in a little playpen with toys that rattled and looked fun to bat around, and then the woman moved towards the door. Cagney went very still and narrowed his eyes so that he wasn’t seen. After she had left, he slunk into the room and squeezed between the bars of the playpen and investigated the small human.

“Kitty!” he burbled. Cagney rubbed up against him and purred, and he laughed and clapped delightedly which Cagney enjoyed. Then the small human grabbed his tail roughly, pulling it painfully.

Cagney yowled and hissed loudly in warning and batted at his hands with his paws, his claws retracted.

The small human's green eyes grew wide with fright. He was not hurt, but he had been startled. He balled up his fists and a green light flowed out and captured Cagney in a small green ball. Then a tear in space opened up and half a second later, there was a  _ pop! _ and Cagney was gone, along with the odd portal that had once been open.

Alexander Fox Xanatos, the son of billionaire David Xanatos and former TV star and halfling Fox, jutted out his bottom lip and whimpered before he burst into a full-on cry.

Fox popped back into the room at the sound of his distress.

“Alex, I only put you down for a minute, honestly!”

Alex continued to cry, and she picked him up and soothed him as she carried him out of the room to get breakfast.

* * *

When Goliath woke the next night, he went straight to the bathroom where he had trapped Cagney. He imagined he might find a mess of one kind or another considering the poor cat had been trapped in there for an entire day, but instead he found the door ajar.

“This cannot be good,” he muttered as he looked inside. There was no sign of Cagney.

He turned off the tap that he had left running and looked in every cupboard and every possible space the cat could be.

The little feline was not there.

Unless someone had found the cat and taken him somewhere, Cagney was wandering around in the castle, and there were all kinds of places he could be hiding.

It could take him days to find him, Goliath despaired.

Unless…he used a tracker.

And they had one of the best ones on hand.

Goliath went in search of Hudson. He had the night off from patrolling and Bronx was usually with him if he was home.

He found Hudson napping in a recliner in the TV room, Bronx curled up at his feet. The gargoyle beast lifted his head up off his front paws and peered up at Goliath as he entered the room, his stubby tail wagged a few times at the sight of him.

“Bronx, hey there, boy,” Goliath said quietly as he crouched down and scratched him on the head and around his ears. His back foot thumped rhythmically against the floor, and his mouth fell open, and his tongue lolled out in a dog-like grin.

“I need your help. Can you find Cagney?”

Bronx cocked his head to the side curiously. Then he stood up and sniffed the air.

“Good boy, Bronx,” Goliath rumbled, and he led Bronx out of the TV room and to the clan’s bathroom.

Bronx sniffed and snuffled, his nose pressed to the ground as he took in Cagney’s scent, then he moved down the hall, his nose snuffling and working furiously. He meandered in a nearly serpentine way, sniffing plants every now and then, and down several other hallways until Goliath realized they were in the part of the castle where Xanatos kept his personal quarters.

“Bronx, we should not trespass,” Goliath said, but Bronx kept following Cagney’s trail until they made it to a closed bedroom door that Goliath knew was Alex’s nursery. Bronx pawed at it, leaving a few gouges in the wood.

“Bronx. Stop that,” Goliath ordered, and Bronx sat down on his haunches and whined softly.

Goliath opened the door gently and peered inside. Alex was asleep in his crib, a low light from a nightlight softly illuminated the room.

“Cagney,” Goliath whispered softly as he looked around. There didn’t appear to be any sign of the cat.

He opened the door wider and let Bronx in.

Bronx sniffed around the room, then he stopped near Alex’s play pen and sat down. He whined softly.

“This is where the trail ends?” Goliath whispered.

Bronx chuffed softly.

Perhaps someone had found Cagney in Alex’s room and picked him up and took him out. He gestured for Bronx to leave, and he followed the beast out and quietly closed the door as Alex continued to sleep peacefully.

Now that the trail had gone cold, Goliath contemplated what else to do. He knew Xanatos had staff that operated during the day and maintained the castle while they were all asleep. Could one of them have found Cagney?

The person to ask was obviously Xanatos’s right-hand man who knew the day-to-day inner workings of the castle, and likely would have been apprised of anything odd like a cat being found.

He went in search of the man and luckily found him working late in his office.

He knocked on the door.

“Enter,” the wooden voice of Xanatos’s assistant and incognito trickster called out.

Goliath did as requested.

“Owen,” Goliath said, feeling no need to use formal titles.

“What can I do for you, Goliath?” Owen said flatly, barely looking up from the papers he was perusing.

“Have you by chance seen a small gray cat?” the gargoyle asked.

The blond man made no indication of his surprise aside from a slightly raised eyebrow.

“No. Why is there a cat loose in the castle?”

“He belongs to Elisa. I was supposed to look after him,” Goliath sighed.

“I see,” Owen said, and seemed to size up the situation immediately. “Elisa called here this morning asking about you, actually, but nothing about her cat. I take it she is not aware he is missing?”

“No,” Goliath replied guiltily.

“I have not seen him, but if I do, I will be sure to alert you.”

“Thank you,” Goliath rumbled, and then a thought struck him. 

"I had Bronx follow Cagney's trail. He followed it into the nursery where it went cold."

"Alex’s nursery?" Owen said, and his face became a mask with no outward emotion.

"It's strange…like he just disappeared."

"Curious," Owen said. "I'll look into it."

"Thank you," Goliath said again and tipped his head graciously towards Owen, then he stalked off in search of the cat.

In a giant castle.

On top of a giant tower.

This was not going to be easy.

* * *

Owen went immediately to the security room after his conversation with Goliath. There were cameras all throughout the castle, including Alex's room. Something he may have an issue with when he got older, but as a baby, he couldn't exactly argue about it or understand the ethical nuances of privacy concerns. That was something he would have to take up with his father later when he got older…or he could just hex the cameras. Either way.

There was a library full of DVDs in the security room that were stored on site and backed up off site as well. Most were just labeled by the rooms and dates, but a few were listed by specific events, such as the Halloween party last fall, and one labeled "G & E - Library - February 2, 1997."

Fox was particularly fond of that recording.

Owen sat at a console and ran the video surveillance from Alex's room, playing it backward through the day. He had reached the early morning when he spotted the small gray cat on the screen. He hit play and watched.

On the screen, Fox entered Alex's room, picked him up out of the crib, got him changed, and then cuddled with him for a few moments before she set him down in a playpen and stepped out for a moment.

The small gray cat entered the room and approached Alex. They seemed to get along fine. The cat wound affectionately around the baby and the child clapped with glee, but then Alex pulled the cat's tail and the cat batted at his hand. Alex startled and then there was a small flash of light and the cat disappeared.

Owen stood up from his seat, shocked. 

He rewound the video and watched it again.

If what happened to Cagney was as he suspected…they were in a world of trouble.

Owen dashed to Alex's nursery and quietly entered the child's room. As Owen, his powers were restrained, but he was still sensitive to power, and there was a kind of residue in Alex's room, the lingering effects of a powerful burst of energy that were still detectable.

He knew what had happened now. He was certain of it, and what's more, what Alex had done, he had done nearly wordlessly. Alex could say a few words, but he could not string together sentences to form complex enchantments.

Even Oberon had to use words most of the time.

Owen swallowed the lump in his throat.

Little Alex was a powerhouse. A prodigy. With only a quarter fae blood.

And the knowledge of that, combined with what he had done, terrified him.


	10. Bargains

Owen went in search of Goliath who now had the whole clan looking for Detective Maza's cat. They were all wandering about the castle, calling for Cagney and making that odd " _pss pss pss"_ sound that humans, and apparently gargoyles, seemed to think made cats come to them, but all it did was make them look silly.

He found Goliath in the library.

“You won’t find him there,” Owen said.

Goliath was looking in the fireplace, of all places, and he hadn’t heard Xanatos’s assistant come in. He startled at the sound of his voice and smacked the top of his head on the underside of the mantle.

One corner of Owen’s mouth turned up imperceptibly at that.

Goliath growled as he turned and looked at the slender blond man and rubbed his head irritably.

“What is it, Owen?” he asked grumpily.

“I know where Cagney is.”

“You do? Where?” Goliath said relieved.

“He is unfortunately in a place I do not have access to.”

“Then I shall get him,” Goliath offered.

“It is not a place you can reach him, either. There is only one person in this castle who can retrieve him.”

“Who?”

“Alexander.”

“I don’t understand…” Goliath said, confused.

“There is a...sort of parallel universe, a world adjacent to our own. It goes by many names: the World Between, the Place of Eternal Night, the Shadow Realm, but no matter what it's called, it is full of things that are dark...dangerous. Things that should not come into our world.”

“What does Alex and Cagney have to do with this...shadow realm?”

“Cagney startled Alex and the child accidentally sent him there.”

“Then he must bring him back!” Goliath ordered. Not only was he afraid for poor Cagney, but he feared what his mate would do to him if he did not get him back.

“It’s not that easy. Opening a way into another realm is dangerous, they are not one way doors. If you open a way, more than just Cagney may be able to leave. Cats are not hard to come by. I suggest you find Elisa a new one and move on,” Owen warned.

Goliath snarled at that suggestion.

“Cagney means more to Elisa than all the cats in the world. For a time, he was her only friend and companion, and I cannot simply replace him,” Goliath argued.

Owen stared emotionlessly back at him.

“If I do this, you will owe me a boon.”

“It was your charge who—”

“One boon. One favor. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

“I will not do anything for you that I find morally repugnant or that puts my clan in danger, sprite,” he growled.

“You take the fun out of everything, Goliath, but I will agree to those terms.”

Goliath sighed heavily.

“Then I agree.”

“The bargain is made then,” Owen said. “We shall begin first thing tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night?! Why do we not get him now? If that realm is as dangerous as you say—”

“Because I need Alexander, and he is currently sleeping, and I am not going to be the one to wake him up.”

“Why can you not open a way yourself? Alex is only a child, and you are…well, I don't know how old you are, but–”

“It has nothing to do with age or ability, but with succession. I, despite all of my many talents, do not possess the keys to open the way to that realm. Only the Kings and Queens of Avalon have the power, along with their bloodline.”

“Which is why Alex was able to do it,” Goliath said, understanding.

“Correct,” Owen said.

“Wait, you said Kings and Queens? As in plural. Are there others aside from Oberon and Titania?”

Owen turned and headed for the door.

“First thing tomorrow evening, Goliath. Be prepared,” he said, ignoring his question, and he left Goliath in the library with more questions than answers.

* * *

Owen pensively watched Alex as he lay sleeping in his crib. He had gone to his nursery directly after his conversation with Goliath. He had hoped for some measure of solace or clarity of mind as he observed the child peacefully sleeping. He often did.

He was such a seemingly innocent child.

And he was.

He was just a child, pure and innocent.

A blank slate.

But he had power, great power, and depending on how–or who–tipped the scales, he could be shaped into a great leader, the heir to Avalon...or he could become its destruction.

He recalled what Titania had said on the night Alex had been born.

_“You have so much to look forward to...such marvelous potential.”_

Did she know? Did she know what he could become?

Before he confronted her, he had to be absolutely sure. It was risky, opening up a way to the World Between. Reckless and stupid, really, but he had to know for certain, and he had struck a bargain with Goliath, and he couldn’t go back on his word without consequences.

Goliath had been warned, but he wasn't aware of how truly dangerous the World Between was.

But Puck knew.

It was not only a realm of monsters, it was a prison.

And they were going to break into it.


	11. The Shadow Realm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conclusion to Part Two and Parting the Veil.

**May 11, 1997** **  
** **Nightfall** **  
** **Castle Wyvern**

Owen was waiting for Goliath with Alex in his arms when he woke up the next night.

"You are lucky the Xanatoses are away for the evening, otherwise I would leave you to explain to them what we are attempting to do with their son tonight."

"Will it endanger the child?" Goliath asked.

"No more than the rest of us. I suggest you have your clan on standby in case we have unexpected company to contend with," Owen explained. "But you should know that at the first sign of danger, I will flee with the child, understood?"

"Understood," Goliath agreed.

"Then, let us begin. Meet me in the nursery in a few minutes."

Goliath nodded, though he felt a tremendous amount of trepidation to attempt this.

What if they unwittingly unleashed some horror upon the world from this dark, nether realm? Would Elisa think it was worth it to bring her cat back if it possibly risked the lives of others?

He wasn't sure, but it was his carelessness that put them in this situation, and he needed to correct it. He couldn’t bear to see Elisa upset if he could help it.

He gathered his clan and apprised them of what was happening, and although some concerns were raised, they all agreed to help.

As first line of defense, he had Coldfire and Coldstone stationed directly outside the nursery, with Brooklyn, Katana, and Fu-Dog stationed on one end of the hallway, and Angela, Broadway and Bronx on the other. Hudson, Lexington, and Nashville were on standby in the great hall. Goliath suggested Nashville and the others take Egwardo as well, but Katana let him know that on no uncertain terms would the egg leave her sight.

She was wielding both her katana and wakizashi at the time, and Goliath decided it was definitely not worth arguing over. 

Once everything was set up, Goliath met Alex and Owen, now in his true form as Puck, in the nursery as he attempted to "teach" Alex how to open a way to the realm where Cagney was trapped.

“If Alex sent a cat to this other realm, what is preventing him from doing the same with any of the rest of us?” Goliath asked, voicing a concern he'd had since he first learned of what happened.

“Absolutely nothing," Puck replied with glee. "Can you imagine him as a teenager? 'Alex, go to your room!'" Puck said, his voice sounding exactly like David Xanatos. Then he switched to a pubescent male voice. "'No, Dad! You go to your room!  _ Zap! _ ’”

Goliath scowled.

“Obviously, I have my work cut out for me,” Puck said, and the grin fell off his face.

Goliath sighed a low rumble as he looked upon the infant that had caused them so much trouble, and not just this weekend. What chaos would this child bring to their lives in the future, he wondered?

Puck set Alex down on the ground. The young child was just starting to take his first steps, and he toddled momentarily before he sat down heavily on his diaper-padded bottom.

“Alright, kid. Time to do your stuff. Open up a way,” Puck ordered as he crossed his legs and floated above the ground in front of his charge.

Alex clapped his hands together and laughed, but nothing happened.

Puck looked towards Goliath and then back towards the baby.

“Hmm, maybe he just needs a little warm up,” then sotto voce he said to Alex, “Come on kid, you’re making me look like a hack.”

Alex babbled and waved his hands, and his teddy bear flew across the room and into his hands.

“Ok, you have your bear now. Open a way, kid,” Puck said.

Alex screwed up his face as if he was concentrating, but nothing happened, and he pouted.

Puck furrowed his brow.

"Come on, Alex, just do what you did before to the kitty."

"Kitty!" Alex exclaimed, and he waved his hand, but again nothing happened, and the pout got bigger.

“He does not recall exactly how he did it,” Puck said to Goliath.

"Then what do we do?" Goliath asked exasperated.

Puck stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Soul transference. Alex has the ability, but not the cognizance to remember cause and effect. We need a bigger brain."

Goliath sighed.

"Then I shall do it."

Puck burst into laughter that lasted several moments, and the gargoyle leader scowled darkly as he realized he was being made fun of.

"Oh, that was a good one, Goliath. Thank you, I needed that," the trickster sighed as he wiped tears from his eyes.

Goliath growled and folded his arms across his chest.

"Alex has never occupied your body, it would take him too long to acclimate. Lex already has a bit of a rapport with the child, perhaps we can use him?” Puck suggested.

Goliath growled nearly infrasonicly, he did not want anyone else dragged into this, but what other option did they have?

He went to the young gargoyle out in the great hall, waiting with Hudson and Nasvhille to see if they were called up to join the fight. Goliath pulled Lexington aside and explained the situation.

"This is your choice, Lex. I will not force you to do anything you do not wish to do, nor will I hold it against you if you choose not to."

"I want to help. For Elisa," Lex said thrusting his chin out and standing taller.

Goliath put a hand on his shoulder gratefully.

Back in the nursery, Puck performed the soul transference spell.

After blinking a few times, Lex smiled at Puck and said, "Kitty. Bring kitty back."

"That's right, Alex. We need you to bring the kitty back."

Puck turned to Goliath.

“When he opens the way, call for Cagney immediately. We want the way to be open for as little time as possible or we run a greater risk of something bad happening."

Goliath nodded.

"OK, Alex, I need you to remember what you did when you sent the kitty away." 

The Alex-possessed Lexington screwed up his face in concentration, and he waved his hand. A bright line, like a crack in the very air appeared in front of him.

"That's it, kid! You're doing it!" Puck cheered, the baby inhabited by Lexington in his arms.

Alex/Lex concentrated harder, and the line grew longer and wider.

“Keep going! Just a little more!”

The crack widened to the size of a large serving platter. Just large enough for a cat to get through.

Goliath crouched down next to Lexington and peered inside the rift. The realm inside was dark, but he could swear he saw shapes, twisting and turning, moving about in the darkness beyond.

"I recommend you don't look too closely. The eyes are the window to the soul, and you don't want something looking in on you and hitching a ride out," Puck warned. 

Goliath reared back, then he glanced obliquely back at the rift, avoiding looking into it directly. 

“Cagney!” Goliath called out.

There was no response.

“Cagney!” Goliath called again, worry for the cat creeping into his voice. “Perhaps I should go in after him?”

“No!” Puck all but shrieked. “That would be the worst thing you could possibly—”

A small dark shape shot out from the opening. It tore about the room, screeching and yowling like its tail was on fire.

“It’s Cagney!” Goliath said and Puck tapped Alex/Lex on the shoulder.

“Close it!” he shouted.

The possessed gargoyle waved a hand and the way closed with an audible  _ pop! _

The small gray cat dashed crazily about the room, then there was a flash of green light that momentarily blinded them all. When Goliath was able to see again, he found the poor cat cowering and shaking in a corner.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Goliath said in a calm tone as he slowly approached Cagney. He scooped him up in his arms, and the poor thing trembled like a leaf.

“You’re safe now, Cagney,” Goliath said as he stroked the cat and attempted to comfort him. Then he turned back to Puck.

“What was that?” he asked, referring to the strange fae light they had seen.

The trickster said nothing. His face was drawn, his brow furrowed with thought, and then his eyes grew wide with absolute horror as he gazed past Goliath and to the doorway of the nursery.

“What have you done?” a cold feminine voice said from behind them.

Goliath turned around to see Titania, the Queen of Avalon and the Third Race, standing in the doorway.

“My Queen!” Puck said, startled and frightened to find his Lady standing there.

"Gran-gran!" Lexington cried out gleefully and clapped his hands at the appearance of his grandmother.

Titania stared oddly at the olive-green gargoyle.

"Halt! Go no further!" Coldstone called out, and he aimed his arm and pop-up blaster at the fae queen.

She turned towards the cyborg and waved her hand. He froze mid stride. Then she turned and did the same to Coldfire who was coming up from behind.

Then she turned to Goliath and Puck, her eyes blazed with fury.

“What have you done?” she said again, her voice was glacial, but it had gone an octave higher from the fear within it.

Then she looked away momentarily as if she was listening to someone speak in another room. When she turned her gaze back on them, her eyes were cold, hard, and enraged.

Then she disappeared.

Coldstone and Coldfire, released suddenly from the enchantment that held them in place, nearly crashed together.

Brooklyn and Katana charged into the room behind them, blaster and swords drawn and ready, followed shortly by Angela, Broadway and the beasts.

"That was Titania!" Angela said incredulously.

"What was she doing here?" Brooklyn asked.

Goliath and Puck just stood there in shock.

"Where Gran-gran go?" Lexington asked and pouted sadly.

“What just happened?” Goliath said to Puck.

“I think that boon you owe me just got a whole lot bigger,” the trickster replied, his tone grave.

Cagney shook in Goliath’s arms, his claws dug painfully into his flesh, but he ignored it. There were far more concerning things to worry about at the moment.

* * *

The Weird Sisters burst into the courtroom where Oberon sat brooding upon his throne.

“Lord Oberon!” Luna said, her voice nearly hysterical.

“The prison has been breached!” Selene cried.

“Your mother is free!” Phoebe said, her voice rising with terror.

Oberon lifted his head up off his fist, and his bored expression slid into one of fear.

“But that is impossible. Only I or Titania can open the way. Merlin is still imprisoned, and—” his eyes grew wide.

“Titania!” he bellowed.

He waited a minute.

“TITANIA!” he shouted louder, and she appeared suddenly beside him.

“Yes, husband?” she said coolly.

“Our son and daughter. Where are they? What have they done?” Oberon bellowed.

“Neither of them have spoken a word to me since you stripped them of their powers and banished them,” Titania said bitterly. “But I check in on them from time to time.”

“And?”

“They live quiet lives amongst the mortals. Nothing unusual to report.”

“What about your other progeny?”

“What of them, husband?” Titania said, her face neutral.

Oberon stood up slowly and loomed over his wife.

“What. Have. They. Done?” he said through clenched teeth.

Titania’s eyes darted back and forth between his, but she said nothing.

“I will not compel you like the others, but if you do not tell me, I—”

“Alex…is more powerful than we anticipated,” Titania said. Her voice full of awe but also fear, and not just for her grandson. “He opened a way into the World Between.”

“A way? Into the World Between?” Oberon arched a brow in disbelief, and his blood ran cold as ice.

“My Lord…” Titania said, her voice trembling. “Queen Mab is free once more.”

* * *

Once Lexington and Alexander were returned to their original bodies, Goliath called up Matt and scheduled to meet him at Elisa’s apartment so he could return Cagney to his home. The cat had calmed down since his ordeal, but he was still a little jumpy and frightened. Goliath knew he would be happier back at home where things were familiar to him.

After he knew Cagney was secure at home, he returned to the castle and took his place on the tower for the day. He heard footsteps on the stairwell and turned to see Puck once more in his human guise.

Xanatos’s assistant approached the ring of crenellations around the tower and leaned between two of the merlons.

“I’m calling in my boon,” Owen said as he gazed out upon the city below.

“Already?” Goliath asked, surprised. He figured Puck would want to carry that favor around for a while until he found something choice enough to call it in.

“You must protect Alex. With your life, if you must,” Owen said solemnly.

“I already protect the lad—”

“No,” Owen cut him off forcefully. “There will be…forces in the years to come who will wish him great harm. You must guard him, protect him. He must come of age.”

“I am unsure—"

“That is my boon,” Owen snapped. “Do not go back on your word, gargoyle.”

Goliath paused at the wooden man’s outburst. It was very unlike him, or Puck for that matter.

“I will protect him,” he said hesitantly.

“Swear it. On your life.”

“I swear to protect him. On my life,” Goliath vowed.

Owen sighed as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, then he straightened himself and nodded briskly once.

“Then the terms of our pact have been met. Good day, Goliath,”

“Uh…Good day,” Goliath replied, feeling extremely disconcerted.

He watched Owen walk down the stairs with trepidation, as if the weight he had shook off had landed on Goliath’s shoulders. The weight of it felt enormous, significant, like it held the potential of altering many lives, but his most of all, and he shuddered with the sense of fear and foreboding that accompanied it.

* * *

When Goliath awoke the next night, David Xanatos was waiting for him.

"My, how the tables have turned, Goliath," the billionaire said, his voice low in a threatening manner.

Goliath stepped off his perch and approached the man.

"How so?" he asked warily.

"Did you think anything goes unnoticed by me in my own home?" Xanatos said in that same deceptively calm way. "Especially when it involves my son?"

Goliath eyed Xanatos cautiously like he was a venomous snake waiting to strike.

"You are lucky it's me coming to speak with you and not Fox, by the way."

“Xanatos, let me explain–”

"You endangered my son over a cat! A fucking cat!" he exploded with rage.

Goliath had never seen Xanatos lose his cool before. He was always calm under pressure to an almost maddening extent, and he was stunned into silence momentarily.

“I have given you and your clan free reign over the castle. I owed you, and I will honor that debt, but if you ever endanger my son again, I won’t bother to warn you; I will show up at noon with a sledge hammer.”

The two glared angrily at each other for a tense heartbeat.

“I do not handle threats well, Xanatos,” Goliath growled.

“I am not threatening. I’m warning, and you’re lucky I’m giving you that much.” Xanatos said, his tone was cold and as sharp as steel.

He took a breath and released it and some of his visible anger went with it.

“Put yourself in my shoes, Goliath. You're a parent. Imagine if I endangered Angela.”

"You  _ have _ endangered her before," Goliath growled. "And if you ever do again, I’ll end you,"

"Then we understand each other. Good.” He took a deep breath and straightened his bespoke suit.

“Elisa left a message for you, by the way. She won’t be returning today as expected. Something came up," Xanatos said, his voice had returned to its normal business-like tone.

“What?” Goliath said, concerned and reeling from the sudden change of subject.

“I don’t know the details. She left a number where she can be reached with Owen.”

Goliath nodded, and Xanatos turned to leave.

“Xanatos…” Goliath said and the man looked back over his shoulder at him. “Your son is terrifyingly powerful. He’s dangerous, and he’s still just an infant.”

“When it comes to worrying about my son, leave that up to me and Fox," Xanatos snapped.

Goliath's eyes flashed. Alex could present a potential danger to his clan, and as far as he was concerned, that made him his business…along with the vow he had made Puck.

“What is the saying, Xanatos? Power tends to corrupt, but absolute power corrupts absolutely?”

Xanatos narrowed his eyes at Goliath.

“Then he’ll be in good company,” he said acidically, and he left by the trapdoor and walked down the winding steps of the spiral stone staircase. He had managed to keep the majority of his emotions off his face as he spoke to Goliath, aside from the one outburst, but as he descended from the tower, his mask slipped, revealing the fear he felt. Fear for his son, what could happen to him, what he could do, but most of all…

What he could become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! Thanks for reading! Be safe!


End file.
